Dreaming of magic: Chapter 7 - Alan
Feb. 5th, 2019 03:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gingersparkTitle: Dreaming of magic
Fandom: Dreaming of sunshine, Naruto, Harry potter
Summary: DOS team 7 reborn into the Harry Potter universe
Amelia
The initial chaos of the Sirius Black situation had stagnated. Lines had been drawn and sides had been chosen.
The Minister, his advisors, Dumbledore, the departments of International co-operation, regulation of magical creatures, and games and sports, along with around a third of the Wizengamot took the view that the DMLE was dragging up old problems because of "technicalities".
The DMLE, the department of magical accidents, the department of transport, and another third of the Wizengamot, led by Griselda Marchbanks, took the view that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, and should be remedied. This side had the advantage of the terrifying combination of Alan Boscastle and Cassiopeia Black, who were now meeting weekly. Amelia was slightly concerned about the way the rumour mill bent to their will, but didn't fancy trying to stop them.
For months, the fight had played out in the prophet, the wireless, and the halls of the Ministry. Sirius Black did not have the dark mark. Sirius Black was caught red-handed. Sirius Black didn't cast the spell. Dumbledore testifies: Sirius Black betrayed the Potters. Peter Pettigrew betrayed the Potters. Peter Pettigrew was a hero. Peter Pettigrew was a murderer who framed his best friend. Peter Pettigrew was dead and searching for him was a waste of ministry resources. Peter Pettigrew was a mass murderer Crouch had allowed to remain at large. Was it Crouch's fault his son became a death eater? Fudge was a principled man who refused to let a murderer walk free. Fudge would condemn an innocent man to prison if it would get him re-elected. The quibbler had put forth the theory that what happened to Sirius Black (also known as Stubby Boardman) was so unjust that a spirit had intervened to help him. Amelia was incredibly tired of the whole mess, which had settled into the same people repeating the same arguments over and over again.
Sirius Black was still in the ministry cells, continuing to be far, far saner than any man who'd spent years in Azkaban should be, but a trial date was now set. Alan's investigations into the mystery of Sirius Black's sanity had not proved fruitful. The man simply claimed that he'd been granted sanity by a powerful spirit and was bound to silence. Amelia wasn't sure if the story was true or not, but dreaded to think what deal Sirius must have made if it was. His disconcerting immunity to dementors was certainly a recent development - the brief period when Fudge had insisted Sirius have a dementor guard had been terrible for everyone except Sirius, who the dementors seemed to fail to notice. Amelia had fought that on the grounds of the wellbeing of the department's employees, but everyone had been just as disconcerted by Sirius's ability to be cheerfully optimistic while standing right next to the creatures. The cheeky sod had immediately caught on and made a great performance of attempting small talk with the hooded nightmares, obviously enjoying the chaos as her employees reacted with fascination, terror or hysterical laughter. Opinion in the DMLE was currently split on the matter of Sirius's sanity: either the man had been granted sainty by something terrifyingly powerful, or he was mad as a hatter and had a very odd way of showing it.
One way or another, the truth of his innocence would out. Amelia was certain she would be proved right, but the biggest problem in their case was the lack of evidence. Of course, it shouldn't be an issue that they couldn't prove Sirius didn't murder anyone, but when set against the Minister and the testimony of Albus Dumbledore, it was a problem. Searching for a single rat had proved challenging, especially given the refusal of the minister to grant them search powers.
Posting a reward had produced several hundred rats, missing a variety of toes. Some were even cunningly charmed to turn human, although no transfigured rat could pass as human once it tried to talk. Unfortunately it took valuable time to untangle the patchwork of charms some enterprising individuals cast and confirm the rat was not Pettigrew. Time her department, still trudging through old arrest reports, didn't have.
The only lead they had was from Arthur Weasley, who had come to her office months ago white faced and clutching the notice with the Pettigrew's description. From his horrified reports they'd determined that the Weasley family had had an oddly long lived pet rat ("Merlin, I never thought...they really only live two years?) that had been found by one of his sons several months after Pettigrew's 'death', and had vanished the day after investigations had started.
It was endlessly frustrating to Amelia that they knew where the rat had been living for years, and their leads were still cold. It was infuriating.
Then Lysander Urien had escorted his son and a small girl carrying a cage into the Auror's office. The first Amelia knew of it was Rufus Scrimgeour rushing into her office shouting "We've got him! We've got him!"
"Got who, Rufus?"
"Pettigrew." He was grinning at her, wild eyed with elation. "We've caught the little rat."
Amelia barely kept her jaw from dropping. "Merlin! Rufus, how?" They had no leads. None of the standard tracking charms worked when someone was in animagus form. Months of attempts had turned up nothing at all.
"This girl-" Rufus started to laugh, sounding slightly hysterical. "She just, she just walks in holding a cage, and asks us to look at the rat, because thinks he might be evil, and her friend thinks he looks weird."
Incredulity cut through Amelia's delight and relief. "She didn't know?"
Rufus snorted. "Pretty sure Urien had it figured out, he kept glancing at the cage like it might bite him. The kids were pretty shocked when the homorphus charm worked though. Pettigrew's safely in the cell with the animagus wards now though."
"Take their statements Rufus, Alan and I will interview Pettigrew."
*
Alan
Alan was deeply curious about what had happened to Pettigrew. The previous theory of their suspect overhearing Arthur Weasley talking about the investigation and scarpering was looking increasingly unlikely. The interview he and Madam Bones had conducted with Pettigrew had been derailed when the Pettigrew had stopped sobbing to stare in bewilderment at the date on the top of the interview transcript.
Pettigrew had been as distressed by the revelation that he was missing six months of memory as he was to find himself in ministry custody. The checks Alan had run had found no traces of obliviation, but veritaserum showed that Pettigrew was telling the truth that his most recent memory before being found by Miss Darby was at the Weasley's.
From Pettigrew's perspective, he'd curled up to sleep in Percy Weasley's bed (Pettigrew was apparently a very creepy person as well as a Death Eater) and woken in a cage on his way to the Ministry six months later. The man had been so hysterical that they'd had to abandon the interview, as even calming charms hadn't got him to stop sobbing. Fortunately, the early halt to the interview meant that the people who had brought Pettigrew in were likely still giving statements, so he could observe and see if any of them seemed the sort to keep a man captive for six months.
Alan walked into the main offices of the Auror department, tucking his magic and chakra down around him in a way that made him unobtrusive, and glanced towards Scrimgeour's desk. The man himself was absent, but Lysander Urien was sitting in one of Scrimgeour's chairs, and Alan caught traces of fear under a facade of pureblood composure. Beside him was a small girl with a plait down her back. She was scribbling in a notebook, and Alan's heart caught in his mouth. For a moment she looked like - Alan forced his mind back to the present, settling his desk and sharpening his hearing with a flick of his wand.
"-alright Uncle Lysander. Really. He wasn't even awake when we found him." The girl was saying.
"Just, Merlin, what if he'd woken up? What if - you two were in such danger." Pettigrew had been found by children? No wonder Lord Urien was freaked out, that could have gone very badly. Pettigrew had a track record with slaughtering bystanders
"We're both ok, nothing happened." Either she was naturally calmer than most civilian children, or she didn't understand how much danger she'd been in.
Scrimgeour interrupted the girl's attempts at reassurance, emerging from an interview room with a dark haired boy.
"All sorted then Lysander, we really can't thank you enough for bringing him in, old boy. And thanks to you two too, you did very well." Scrimgeour said, grinning at the children. Scrimgeour was trying his best to be personable, but the man's stern face wasn't made for friendly expressions.
Lysander's answering smile was slightly weak. "Yes, well, we've learned to listen to Katherine's feelings about people."
Alan watched as Scrimgeour escorted them out, eyes drawn helplessly to the girl. She moved smoothly, less like a civilian child than most of the children here. More like a child with combat training, like the clan kids from Before. Alan stowed that thought as the group left the office and went to read the statements.
He retreated to his desk with the documents, trying to push memories of the girl he failed out of his head and look at the situation objectively.
The three witness statements were consistent with each other. Sylvanus Urien saw a rat under a hedge in the Urien manor grounds, with what he reported as "weird looking magic." Katherine Darby felt that the rat was evil and should be contained. The two children carried the unconscious rat inside and put him in a cage they found in the attic. They brought their concerns about the 'evil rat' to Lysander Urien, who suspected the rat might be Pettigrew and spelled the cage unbreakable. They flooed to the ministry, and Pettigrew woke up in the ministry floo hall.
The most likely theory was that whoever had been keeping Pettigrew captive had knocked him out and thrown him into Urien grounds on the assumption that the family, known for being able to find things, would notice. He had no way to tell if the person who had been holding Pettigrew was the man's former ally or aligned against Pettigrew himself or the Death Eaters. Alan personally suspected the same being responsible for Sirius Black's bizarre sanity. The easy power and secrecy seemed similar, and the motivation for acting for Black and against Pettigrew was likely the same.
Perhaps it was time to push Black on his secret benefactor's identity.
*
Sirius
Sirius' last meeting with Shikako had been interesting, to say the least. She'd emerged out of the shadows as usual, in the large and well-appointed cell the ministry had provided to him. He'd been a little concerned she might not be able to sneak into the ministry cells. Sirius had jumped up from his nest on the bed, tail wagging but suppressing the urge to bark happily when Shikako put a finger to her lips. She slapped sheets of paper covered in her strange runes onto each wall of his cell, and Sirius sprung forward.
"Hello Sirius." She scratched his ears affectionately. Sirius was well aware he was touch starved, and getting affection was much less awkward as a dog. Shikako was always willing to hug him and he didn't even have to ask.
He pulled back eventually and shifted back into human form. Dragging his chair closer to his bed, he gestured at it and sat himself on the bed.
"Sit, sit. How have you been?"
"I'm good. You, uh, redecorated?" She asked, glancing at the bed, desk, and small shelf of books.
He grinned. "The DMLE is really very apologetic about my continued detainment."
Shikako smiled. "I can imagine."
"How's Harry doing?" Sirius asked, leaning forward.
"He's doing well. We told him about you, now we're sure you'll be getting out. We didn't want to get his hopes up before." While Sirius was still processing her certainty in his freedom, she pulled a piece of paper out of thin air. "Here, he drew you a picture."
Sirius took the crinkled paper carefully, gently smoothing it out on his lap. His godson had drawn a picture of large black dog standing next to a boy with green eyes and messy black hair. Sirius blinked back tears, smiling at the picture. Harry was a talented artist, especially for his age. Sirius wished putting the picture on his cell wall wouldn't give his contact with his godson away.
"You're certain I'll be getting out?" Sirius finally asked, tucking the picture safely away into one of his runes.
"We've got Pettigrew." Shikako said, a grimly satisfied smile on her face. "I'm nearly done figuring out the rune arrays in the dark mark, and I think I should be able to create protective wards that target anyone with the mark once I've done that. Wherever Harry lives after he leaves the Dursley's needs to be protected. I'll arrange handing Pettigrew over to the ministry once that's done."
"You?...Merlin's balls. Alright. Um." He'd known Shikako was terrifyingly powerful, right from their first meeting, but this was different. She'd taken down and captured a death eater and it sounded like she was using him as some kind of a... lab rat? That was scary on a whole other level, even leaving aside the way she was always several steps ahead and to the side of anything he'd consider a reasonable course of action. "What's protecting him at the moment?"
"The blood wards his mother set up are functioning to protect him from anyone who doesn't live in his home. I've figured out a way to add to those so they can run on Petunia's blood, rather than her physical presence, as long as it's willingly given blood. There's a lot of layers to those wards. Any magical person who wishes him harm won't be able to find him, anyone actually attempting to hurt him would likely die in the attempt. Lily knew what she was doing, and she powered them with a willing sacrifice." Sirius hadn't realised Lily had set up illegal blood wards to protect Harry. He should have expected it of course, but still. Anything involving blood sacrifice was, technically speaking, banned dark magic. Not that Lily had much to worry about there - if she hadn't had to use it, no one would have found out, and if she did, well. She'd be dead, and out of the influence of the DMLE.
"He's safe for now then, that's good." Sirius was sensibly choosing to focus on his godson's welfare rather than the disconcerting implications of the rest of the information Shikako had given him. He could sort through the potential clues about her motivations and abilities later.
"So, Sirius." Shikako grimaced slightly. "I need to ask a favour." Sirius straightened up. He'd been expecting something like this, nothing was free, especially with powerful beings, and he knew he'd racked up a huge debt. The awkwardness was odd but - "Please don't tell anyone about me." Uh. Sirius's brain stalled. Was that it? He owed her everything, how was that even close to equal? "I heard you told the Aurors that a spirit granted you protection from the dementors." She continued, making Sirius's heart stutter. Had he said too much? He'd been trying to be circumspect about Shikako's assistance, but he was suddenly regretting teasing the Aurors with his dementor immunity. Shit.
"That's all I've told them, nothing else. I said a spirit granted me protection, I haven't answered any of their questions past that, I said I was bound to silence since you seemed to want to keep your help secret." He forced his voice to be steady, watching her closely.
Shikako seemed relieved. "That's good. I was worried you might have said enough for someone to put two and two together and figure out it was me helping you."
Sirius was, frankly, quite confused about why Shikako wanted her aid to be secret, but if that was what she wanted, he'd help to the best of his ability.
"I'll keep your identity secret as far as I can." Sirius frowned, thinking over the circumstances that might make that difficult - he really, really wanted to avoid angering Shikako. "The Aurors are getting curious, I'm not certain they won't give me veritaserum. You could obliviate me?" Shikako looked horrified, so he backtracked. "Or, could you bind me to silence? I think there were a couple of rituals in my father's library. I don't want to be forced to give up your secrets." Shikako had switched from horrified to tense and grimacing right after he'd mentioned silencing. Sirus thought that meant she might be considering it, which was good - he'd much rather be selectively silenced than obliviated.
"Why would you let me do that?" She asked.
"You - Shikako, I owe you a debt." Didn't she understand that? She'd given him back his mind, and she was apparently ensuring he got out. She was even looking out for Harry. He owed her a debt. Hell, the house of Black owed her a debt, especially if he got out and revived this family line. He wasn't sure he wanted to do that, but Grandfather had indicated it was expected once his name was cleared. Speaking of which - "I probably need to tell my Grandfather."
Her brow furrowed. "Lord Black? Why would he need to know?" That was interesting. She was apparently unaware of the ways debts were treated among pureblood houses.
"I owe you a debt, and as the head of my family he's responsible if I die and leave it unpaid. He'll probably decide that the house of Black owes you a debt too, he was always obsessed with the strength and continuation of the most ancient and noble House of Black." He knew he'd failed to keep the disdain for his family line out of his voice.
"Even though I'm muggleborn?" She raised an eyebrow.
What? Sirius had kind of been assuming she was some sort of strange fae or spirit (dissolving into shadows was impossible for humans, it broke Walpuddle's principles of human transformation) so hearing her describe herself as muggleborn was a surprise.
Sirius stared at Shikako and tried to order his thoughts. She'd broken into Azkaban twice and captured a fully grown death eater. It made much, much more sense for her to be a spirit taking the form of a child for incomprehensible fae reasons. If she was actually a what, eight year old muggleborn girl, then he had a lot of questions, starting with how she could turn into shadow. Why was she doing any of this? How had she known he was innocent? Where were her parents? How did she even know the magical world existed? How was she deliberately using powerful magic with an immature magical core? How had she pulled off breaking into Azkaban? None of it made sense.
Some of his utter bewilderment apparently showed on his face, because Shikako spoke up after a long moment of silence.
She said "I'm a seer." Like that answered all the questions he could possibly have. He could sort of see that as an explanation for her knowledge (if she was a very powerful seer) and maybe her motivations, but it didn't start to explain the things she'd achieved or the magic she could do. It just- it didn't make sense. Sirius took a slow breath and used his years of occlumency training to tidy his swirling confusion away into a box. He could contemplate the mystery of Shikako later.
What had they been talking about? Right, debts to the house of Black.
"It doesn't matter, Grandfather will still consider a debt owed to you." He considered her immediate assumption that being a muggleborn would matter. "It's- well, my mother might have tried to ignore a debt to a muggleborn, but she was a fanatic and a nutjob. Grandfather is, well, he doesn't exactly like muggleborns, but he'd never let that get in the way of his duties to the house of Black. Honour is important to him." Arcturus would likely categorise her as 'not a real muggleborn' (Grandfather was a bigoted old fuck, so of course anyone magically powerfully wasn't 'really muggleborn') but he'd treat her with respect.
Shikako appeared to contemplate that for a moment, gazing into the middle distance. "So he'd be willing to do me a favour at some point in the future."
Sirius thought that was understating how much Arcturus would be willing to do to repay the being who gave him a chance to restore his house, but what he said was "Yes."
"Would he be willing to swear keep my identity from anyone else?" Shikako asked hesitantly.
"He'd be willing to keep it within the house of Black." Her eyes narrowed, and he realised how evasive that sounded, especially considering how awful a lot of his family had been. "Aunt Cassiopeia is an interfering old busybody, and she and Grandfather have always been close. Trying to get him to keep information from her is a fool's errand, she'd find out anyway. It'll only make her more interested."
Shikako was grimacing. "It's really important that no one realises I'm the person who helped you. I need to avoid scrutiny for as long as possible."
Sirius was really uncomfortable with the nervousness of the impossibly powerful witch. It was disconcerting, and Sirius hoped he'd be able to figure out what she was scared of, so he could ensure he never went anywhere near it. "Could you bind them to silence at a distance?" Honestly he had no idea what she was and wasn't capable of, and if it helped her trust them, that could only be good. Merlin, what had happened to a muggleborn kid to make her act this wary?
"I- maybe." She said, pulling a notebook out of thin air. "Could you tell me what you know about magical binding rituals?"
Sirius obliged, resorting to occlumency to pull out memories of decade old magical theory lessons and things he'd found in the Grimmauld Place library. Half an hour later Shikako was sitting on the floor, surrounded by sheets of paper covered in a mixture of normal runes and her own unfamiliar ones. Sirius had realised that Shikako was extremely intelligent - she had holes in her knowledge of magical theory, but once given the information she could pull together a far better understanding than he had. His benefactor also had some strange hang ups about binding runes. She'd started by sketching out a design in a different style to what Sirius had seen of her runes before, and he'd caught flickers of anger and disgust. The design she'd eventually settled on shared almost nothing with that design. From what he understood, it would prevent him from revealing her identity by paralysing him if he intended to communicate it to anyone who didn't also have the rune array.
"Alright. I think the best way to keep things secret is to disassociate the person who helped you from Katherine Darby." Shikako said, confusing Sirius for a moment. "So, if you tell anyone who asks about..." She sighed in resignation. "Shikabane-hime who broke into Azkaban and protected you from dementors using the power of Gelel, and has bound you to silence on the details. Then no one should connect that to me." She gave him a wry smile as he committed those details to memory.
"What's Gelel?" He asked, curious about the details that had flowed from her lips so easily.
"Gelel is a god I...encountered." She sounded wistful. "We were stars."
Sirius closed his mouth and tried to control his expression of shock. Thankfully she didn't seem to be paying attention. Merlin's balls. Well, if being chosen by a god was the explanation for her ... everything then that explained a good deal more than being a seer did. Sirius had been taught about the old powers as a child, but he'd never expected to encounter anything to do with them. The girl (priestess?) looked up, and Sirius tucked away yet another world-changing revelation for later examination.
"So, how does the binding work?" It wasn't the most subtle change of subject, but it wasn't terrible, considering how off balance he felt.
"Ah, right." She shuffled the papers, placing the final version of the binding in front of him. It was a series of concentric circles in three separate scripts. "So, you just put your hand in the middle and swear to keep the secrets of Shikabane-hime."
Sirius placed his hand in the centre of the pattern. "I, Sirius Orion Black, swear to keep the secrets of Shikabane-hime." He felt the binding take, twining through his magic with a burst of power and settling on his tongue.
Shikabane-hime was her true name? Was Shikako a nickname? If the binding magic had worked, then presumably she hadn't pulled a pseudonym out of nowhere. Binding magic tied to names just didn't work like that. As far as he knew, anyway. Shikako did do supposedly impossible things on a semi regular basis, so who knew.
Shikako looked at him intently for a moment before grinning. "It worked." He had no idea how she could tell, it wasn't her magic being bound, so that was yet another odd ability. "Thank you Sirius." She sounded so relieved and sincere, his heart melted a little.
"You're welcome Shikako." He said. "So, I just get them both to swear before I tell them?"
"Yep." She handed him two sheets with the same array he'd used, and he turned away to tuck them into one of his storage runes.
When he looked back over she was stifling a yawn. "You should get home, it's late."
"Yeah." She mumbled. "Eight year olds need a lot of sleep."
When Shikako had left Sirius collapsed onto his bed, head spinning with the various revelations the girl had dropped on him.
*
Alan
Alan entered the interview room with his usual offering of tea, and froze for a split second as he registered Sirius's magic. He covered his moment of hesitation with a cheerful greeting and put the tea tray down on the table.
Sirius's magic was subtly different. His usual warm tones were intertwined with something that felt vast and starry, but somehow familiar. Now he though about it, Sirius's magic had always had a twist of that power around his heart, but now it was far stronger, weaving through his magical core and twisting into a knot in the back of his mouth.
The confirmation that Sirius's benefactor could slip through ministry security was unsurprising but still concerning. What had they done, and why now? Alan was less sure the break ins were actually a spirit than most of his coworkers. He had the advantage of being able to sense magic, along with more stealth training than anyone here would ever have. Azkaban wasn't truly impenetrable, and he wouldn't be surprised if some bright magical managed to sneak in and out. It was probably an A-rank equivalent, but nowhere near impossible.
Alan was glad he'd managed to build a solid relationship with Sirius, because he doubted the man would talk about his mysterious 'spirit' without that trust. He smiled at Sirius across the table, handing over a mug of tea.
"So, some kids found Pettigrew today." He kept his tone casual and focused on Sirius's reactions.
"Really? That's a relief!" Sirius's surprise was less than convincing. "Wait, kids? Are they ok?" His concern on the other hand, sounded genuine.
"They're fine, they found him unconscious, and he didn't wake up until they got to the ministry." Alan reassured him. "Funny thing though, Pettigrew doesn't remember the last six months."
Sirius's laugh was vicious.
"Hm." He grinned, giving Sirius the impression he shared in the mirth. "The running theory in the department is that whoever gave you immunity to dementors was keeping him prisoner."
Sirius tensed for an instant (Bingo) but then smirked and relaxed, like he'd just remembered something.
"Unfortunately for the DMLE, I'm bound to silence on the details." Sirius smirked.
Sirius's smug confidence made Alan think it was an actual magical binding rather than an simple vow. That might account for the changes to Sirius's magic, which was incredibly frustrating. Alan wished he'd done this interview before Sirius had been bound to silence. He didn't want to accidently strip Sirius of his magic with overzealous use of veritaserum. The DMLE had enough to deal with, no one needed a repeat of the bloody Harold Scrope incident.
"What can you tell me about your mysterious benefactor then?" Details weren't everything, he might at least be able to figure out if Sirius's benefactor was human or not.
Sirius looked thoughtful. "Her name" he began cautiously "is -" the foreign magic twisted, snapping around Sirius's own, and the man froze. The magic withdrew, and the infuriating man grinned cheerfully at Alan. "Huh, that wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting."
Alan stared. That wasn't a binding that punished someone for breaking it, which was very much the normal course of magical bindings. This seemed to physically prevent Sirius from speaking, without harming him at all. It was nothing at all like the way wizards and witches used magic. That was a mark against his 'competent human' theory.
It also meant that while they could use veritaserum without harming Sirius or rendering him a squib, it wouldn't get them any of the information the DMLE wanted.
"Finished testing the binding?" He enquired, lifting an eyebrow.
"Yep." Sirius seemed to be unaware of how irritating his smug expression was, and it would be counter to Alan's purposes to enlighten him.
"What does your mystery benefactor want you to tell us then?" Anything left out of a binding that powerful was left out on purpose.
"She uses the power of Gelel." Sirius's lighthearted demeanour gave way to understated awe.
"This was the power she used to protect you from the Dementors?"
"Yeah. And to get in and out of places, I think."
That was vague and unenlightening.
"Do you know where Pettigrew was hiding?" Hopefully the mysterious 'she' wouldn't have considered things about Sirius's own knowledge secret.
"No idea. I didn't even know she was going after Pettigrew until after it happened." Sirius sprawled back in his chair, gesturing with his mug of tea.
Alan added potential skill with tracking or location spells to the worryingly long list of abilities.
"Where was the little rat hiding?" Sirius asked, a vicious gleam in his eyes.
"Pretending to be a pet and sleeping in little boys' beds." Alan grimaced. It really was a failure for the Aurors, and they were all very thankful the examinations of the Weasley chidren hadn't turned up any memory tampering.
Sirius's expression twisted. "That creepy little shit, I wish-" he cut himself off, sensibly not admitting to murderous intent during a recorded interview.
Alan nodded in agreement and decided a change of subject was in order. "Would you say your benefactor is human?"
Sirius shrugged. "Honestly I have no idea." Alan got the impression the man was sincerely bewildered, which was interesting in its own right. Was this a magical being doing a bad impression of humanity, or a witch so powerful her feats seemed inhuman? "She said Gelel was a god she encountered."
Alan focused on his breathing, keeping a friendly and quizzical expression on his face. He wasn't going to think about his own 'encounter' with a god. Alan locked the flood of terrorpainshikakonopleaseno away in the back of him mind.
"Can you tell me her name?" Alan could feel his heart pounding in his chest, he was familiar enough with his own mental state to know he should probably duck out of this interview as soon as he could.
"Shikabane-hime."
Alan was peripherally aware that the shocked recognition must be showing on his face. Shikabane-hime. It might have been two decades since he'd heard that macabre nickname but it wasn't the sort of thing you forgot.
Had she - had she survived as some kind of - he didn't know, spirit of some kind? Or was she like him, stuck in a body years too young? Oh god. Should he try to find her?
Alan thanked Sirius, collected the transcript and left, aware that his mask of calm was paper thin.
Alan found a storage cupboard and entered, casting a dozen spells on the doors before slumping against the shelves.
Shikako. His kohai was here too. He really didn't want the confirmation that she'd been sacrificed too. He'd hoped- well. He should have known better. Surviving a through and through wasn't immortality, no matter how much he'd hoped.
Alan snatched his cravat away from his throat, running his fingers over and over the unbroken skin of his throat. He tried to slow his breathing, focusing on the present. His name was Alan, not Aoba, and he was a wizard, not a shinobi.
Ten minutes later he emerged from the cupboard to report to Madam Bones, cheerful and composed as ever.
*
Sasuke
Sasuke was really starting to see what Kako meant about things spiralling out of control.
First there was the Sirius situation, which had gone from giving the man basic things in Azkaban, to kidnapping Pettigrew because he might bolt after hearing Sirius was getting a trial. Then there was keeping the rat captive for six months while they studied the dark mark. Sasuke knew the reflection seals they had produced from their study would be invaluable when fighting death eaters, even if they wouldn't work for the more powerful spells. However, he had spent six months worried his parents would discover they were keeping a death eater prisoner in the attic.
After the (thankfully smooth) handover to the Aurors, they'd realised that Sirius might accidently give away enough to tie Shikako and Katherine together. Shikako had come out of that meeting having produced three silencing seals, two of which were apparently for the elderly members of the Black family.
It make sense for Sirius to tell his head of house about the massive debt he owed them, but it was a risk to the trio. None of them had a good estimation of Lord Black or how he'd act, and it made them all uncomfortable.
Not, however, as uncomfortable as the discussion he was currently having with his parents. Sasuke would freely admit he wasn't great at the whole 'having parents' thing.
He felt that telling them about the seal Shikako was going to apply in advance was considerate, so they wouldn't worry about the visible seal on his forehead.
His parents seemed to feel he should have told them much earlier.
"Sylvanus, we just want to understand why you didn't tell us about the headaches earlier. We could have taken you to a healer." His mother was practically pleading and it was incredibly uncomfortable.
"It's not that bad, they mostly faded years ago. It's only really a problem if I go somewhere with large amounts of active magic." It would have been a problem when he went to Hogwarts, which was part of the reason Shikako had wanted to get it fixed. The headaches would have been tolerable, but would probably impact his ability to learn.
His Father's eyes narrowed. "This is why you always seemed so tired after we go to Diagon, isn't it."
"Yes." He conceded. "But Katherine's runes fix that. The headbands work, and I can turn it on and off when I need to. It's just more convenient to have it on me all the time."
"How long have you three been working on this?" His mother asked.
"A few months."
"Why didn't you ask for help?" His mother was still sounding confused and upset, it was awful.
"Katherine was sure she would manage it, so we didn't need any help." They hadn't. Kako had produced working prototypes pretty quickly, and she'd made seals for his eyes Before. He didn't really trust other people near his eyes, especially if they realised how useful his vision was. Not that they knew if his sight would transfer with his eyeballs like a Sharingan, but better safe than sorry.
Both his parents looked pained.
"We'll arrange an appointment with a Healer and a Rune master to check things over, alright Sylvanus?" It was clear his mother wasn't making a suggestion, so Sasuke nodded.
Lysander hummed thoughtfully, running his fingers over the strip of cloth bearing the seal. "Perhaps we should bring Katherine too. It's been years since my runes OWL, and I can't make head or tail of this."
Sasuke sighed and let his parents make plans.
*
Lysander
Lysander gulped the strange pink muggle "cockstail" Jo and Doug had brought to their little get together. He and Theo hadn't really thought they'd have much in common with the muggle parents of their ward, but they'd soon realised that Katherine's parents understood. They understood the difficulty of raising a child who was so clever and thoughtful and tried to solve everything themselves. A child who had abilities they didn't understand.
When Naruto had been instantly folded into the tight little world of Katherine and Sylvanus, the four of them had been quick to invite his wife's school friend and her Japanese husband along.
They met up once a week to commiserate, drink heavily, and help each other figure out how to support children with such different needs to what they expected. They all had similar problems with their intelligent and secretive children, who would ask their parents for help as an absolute last resort.
Muggle parenting books had been a revelation to the wizard raised half of their group, but were surprisingly unhelpful in situations like "my child is conducting medical experiments."
The trip to St. Mungo's had been enlightening. Sort of. It had certainly brought to light a lot of things he'd rather not have known.
Surrounded by Healers, Rune specialists and curse-breakers, Lysander had realised several things. None of the healers had a clue what was up with Sylvanus's eyes, and were certainly in no place to offer solutions. A barrage of diagnostic charms had concluded that his eyes were tied into his magic in a way none of the healers had seen before, and none could explain. Sylvanus and Katherine had been very, very quiet about that, and Lysander was suspicious. Katherine's rune-headband did function, and it let Sylvanus cut that connection at will, and it was obviously better than anything anyone else was proposing.
Katherine's skill with runes was not just beyond his rusty OWL level. It was beyond, or somehow different to, the work of rune masters several decades her senior. They had eventually figured out what each part did (with much patient explaining from Katherine) and that had led to more disturbing revelations.
Apparently Katherine and Sylvanus both considered what Curse-breaker Wykford described as "a really nasty bit of fire magic" an important part of protecting his son's eyes. Because they were worried someone would steal his son's eyeballs, dear Merlin. Had his ward not been a seer (and a proven and reliable one) he might have tried to reassure them that no one was going to steal Sylvanus's eyes. Only a fool, however, would dismiss the warnings of a seer like that. Lysander was going to have nightmares about dark wizards stealing his son's eyes, he knew it.
After some back and forth with Wykford, they had determined that it was, technically, a legal defensive magic (and when did his son learn so much about law?) and that it wouldn't go off accidently. Rune work was apparently stable like that. No one would be able to remove his son's eyeballs (eyeballs, Merlin's beard) without being incinerated.
He'd known finding Katherine at just the right time had been a blessing to his family. The Urien family magic often guided him to people or things he needed, or would need, and he had no doubt that it was that which had led himself and Sylvanus to Katherine. He was incredibly glad they'd found her, with her easy friendship with Sylvanus and sharp intelligence. Lysander worried however, that the reason they needed Katherine was something far darker. The focused devotion with which the children threw themselves into duelling, learning not like they were learning a long formalised sport, but like they would be expected to fight at any moment, that scared him.
The protective runes Jo and Doug had found carved and inked all over their house worried him too. He hadn't thought to ward their house, hadn't thought it would be needed. Katherine had, and he wondered what she saw that made her so certain of danger. Mary, who was the best of them with wards, had checked Katherine's work and added a few wand-based layers before pronouncing it secure.
The others shared his concerns, and the four parents who had magic had begun brushing up their defense skills. Makoto had taught them what Japanese magical society considered basic defense skills, while Theo taught them her more vicious hexes. They'd all been a little stumped as to how Katherine's parents could defend themselves against a wizard, until Mary remembered a younger ravenclaw boy who'd stabbed a death eater during the war. None of them had any real belief that Jo or Doug would win against a wizard, but it was better than nothing. Jo was at least enjoying her muggle knife fighting classes, even if her husband wasn't keen on exercise.
Lysander took a bracing swig of the sweet pink drink before starting, ignoring the concerned looks it gained him. "Katherine's worried someone's going to try and steal Sylvanus's eyes." He stated.
"His eyes?" Mary asked, sharing incredulous glances with the others
Lysander nodded, staring into the middle distance. "The rune thing we brought them in to check, it incinerates anyone who tries to - to remove his eyeballs."
"Oh Jesus." Doug buried his face in his hands. "That's, um... fuck, that's a concern?"
"Specifically the eyes?" Makoto's face was stuck between confused and horrified.
"Apparently." Lysander reaches for the jug and refills his glass.
"And the forehead runes will stop it?" Theo asks, clutching her glass.
"Katherine seemed confident." That at least, was reassuring.
"Well. I suppose we let them get on with it then?" Theo seemed content with the incineration of anyone who tried to hurt Sylvanus. Lysander was still trying to get over the eyeball theft bit.
"Perhaps this is a step closer to the children telling us things." Makoto mused. "He told you before, not after. It is not much, but..."
Unspoken was their mutual agreement not to push the children on their secrets. Trying to persuade a seer to tell you things they didn't think you should know was the stuff of tragedies, and they all knew it, even the muggle couple. More than that, they all shared a fear that pushing for information would drive their children to greater secrecy.
Lysander was glad their children had each other, had people they trusted completely.
Previous
So, uh, my chapters keep getting longer.
I thought this was going to be the chapter with the trial, but nope. Poor Aoba was a bit traumatised by being sacrificed to a god of pain and suffering.
The parents are freaked out by wft the kids are preparing for, and Kako hasn't quite realised how much the adults are taking cues from her. Team 7, collectively driving their parents to drink.
Tell me what you think, this is the longest thing I've ever written and I have no idea what I'm doing, so concrit welcome.
***
Fandom: Dreaming of sunshine, Naruto, Harry potter
Summary: DOS team 7 reborn into the Harry Potter universe
Amelia
The initial chaos of the Sirius Black situation had stagnated. Lines had been drawn and sides had been chosen.
The Minister, his advisors, Dumbledore, the departments of International co-operation, regulation of magical creatures, and games and sports, along with around a third of the Wizengamot took the view that the DMLE was dragging up old problems because of "technicalities".
The DMLE, the department of magical accidents, the department of transport, and another third of the Wizengamot, led by Griselda Marchbanks, took the view that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, and should be remedied. This side had the advantage of the terrifying combination of Alan Boscastle and Cassiopeia Black, who were now meeting weekly. Amelia was slightly concerned about the way the rumour mill bent to their will, but didn't fancy trying to stop them.
For months, the fight had played out in the prophet, the wireless, and the halls of the Ministry. Sirius Black did not have the dark mark. Sirius Black was caught red-handed. Sirius Black didn't cast the spell. Dumbledore testifies: Sirius Black betrayed the Potters. Peter Pettigrew betrayed the Potters. Peter Pettigrew was a hero. Peter Pettigrew was a murderer who framed his best friend. Peter Pettigrew was dead and searching for him was a waste of ministry resources. Peter Pettigrew was a mass murderer Crouch had allowed to remain at large. Was it Crouch's fault his son became a death eater? Fudge was a principled man who refused to let a murderer walk free. Fudge would condemn an innocent man to prison if it would get him re-elected. The quibbler had put forth the theory that what happened to Sirius Black (also known as Stubby Boardman) was so unjust that a spirit had intervened to help him. Amelia was incredibly tired of the whole mess, which had settled into the same people repeating the same arguments over and over again.
Sirius Black was still in the ministry cells, continuing to be far, far saner than any man who'd spent years in Azkaban should be, but a trial date was now set. Alan's investigations into the mystery of Sirius Black's sanity had not proved fruitful. The man simply claimed that he'd been granted sanity by a powerful spirit and was bound to silence. Amelia wasn't sure if the story was true or not, but dreaded to think what deal Sirius must have made if it was. His disconcerting immunity to dementors was certainly a recent development - the brief period when Fudge had insisted Sirius have a dementor guard had been terrible for everyone except Sirius, who the dementors seemed to fail to notice. Amelia had fought that on the grounds of the wellbeing of the department's employees, but everyone had been just as disconcerted by Sirius's ability to be cheerfully optimistic while standing right next to the creatures. The cheeky sod had immediately caught on and made a great performance of attempting small talk with the hooded nightmares, obviously enjoying the chaos as her employees reacted with fascination, terror or hysterical laughter. Opinion in the DMLE was currently split on the matter of Sirius's sanity: either the man had been granted sainty by something terrifyingly powerful, or he was mad as a hatter and had a very odd way of showing it.
One way or another, the truth of his innocence would out. Amelia was certain she would be proved right, but the biggest problem in their case was the lack of evidence. Of course, it shouldn't be an issue that they couldn't prove Sirius didn't murder anyone, but when set against the Minister and the testimony of Albus Dumbledore, it was a problem. Searching for a single rat had proved challenging, especially given the refusal of the minister to grant them search powers.
Posting a reward had produced several hundred rats, missing a variety of toes. Some were even cunningly charmed to turn human, although no transfigured rat could pass as human once it tried to talk. Unfortunately it took valuable time to untangle the patchwork of charms some enterprising individuals cast and confirm the rat was not Pettigrew. Time her department, still trudging through old arrest reports, didn't have.
The only lead they had was from Arthur Weasley, who had come to her office months ago white faced and clutching the notice with the Pettigrew's description. From his horrified reports they'd determined that the Weasley family had had an oddly long lived pet rat ("Merlin, I never thought...they really only live two years?) that had been found by one of his sons several months after Pettigrew's 'death', and had vanished the day after investigations had started.
It was endlessly frustrating to Amelia that they knew where the rat had been living for years, and their leads were still cold. It was infuriating.
Then Lysander Urien had escorted his son and a small girl carrying a cage into the Auror's office. The first Amelia knew of it was Rufus Scrimgeour rushing into her office shouting "We've got him! We've got him!"
"Got who, Rufus?"
"Pettigrew." He was grinning at her, wild eyed with elation. "We've caught the little rat."
Amelia barely kept her jaw from dropping. "Merlin! Rufus, how?" They had no leads. None of the standard tracking charms worked when someone was in animagus form. Months of attempts had turned up nothing at all.
"This girl-" Rufus started to laugh, sounding slightly hysterical. "She just, she just walks in holding a cage, and asks us to look at the rat, because thinks he might be evil, and her friend thinks he looks weird."
Incredulity cut through Amelia's delight and relief. "She didn't know?"
Rufus snorted. "Pretty sure Urien had it figured out, he kept glancing at the cage like it might bite him. The kids were pretty shocked when the homorphus charm worked though. Pettigrew's safely in the cell with the animagus wards now though."
"Take their statements Rufus, Alan and I will interview Pettigrew."
*
Alan
Alan was deeply curious about what had happened to Pettigrew. The previous theory of their suspect overhearing Arthur Weasley talking about the investigation and scarpering was looking increasingly unlikely. The interview he and Madam Bones had conducted with Pettigrew had been derailed when the Pettigrew had stopped sobbing to stare in bewilderment at the date on the top of the interview transcript.
Pettigrew had been as distressed by the revelation that he was missing six months of memory as he was to find himself in ministry custody. The checks Alan had run had found no traces of obliviation, but veritaserum showed that Pettigrew was telling the truth that his most recent memory before being found by Miss Darby was at the Weasley's.
From Pettigrew's perspective, he'd curled up to sleep in Percy Weasley's bed (Pettigrew was apparently a very creepy person as well as a Death Eater) and woken in a cage on his way to the Ministry six months later. The man had been so hysterical that they'd had to abandon the interview, as even calming charms hadn't got him to stop sobbing. Fortunately, the early halt to the interview meant that the people who had brought Pettigrew in were likely still giving statements, so he could observe and see if any of them seemed the sort to keep a man captive for six months.
Alan walked into the main offices of the Auror department, tucking his magic and chakra down around him in a way that made him unobtrusive, and glanced towards Scrimgeour's desk. The man himself was absent, but Lysander Urien was sitting in one of Scrimgeour's chairs, and Alan caught traces of fear under a facade of pureblood composure. Beside him was a small girl with a plait down her back. She was scribbling in a notebook, and Alan's heart caught in his mouth. For a moment she looked like - Alan forced his mind back to the present, settling his desk and sharpening his hearing with a flick of his wand.
"-alright Uncle Lysander. Really. He wasn't even awake when we found him." The girl was saying.
"Just, Merlin, what if he'd woken up? What if - you two were in such danger." Pettigrew had been found by children? No wonder Lord Urien was freaked out, that could have gone very badly. Pettigrew had a track record with slaughtering bystanders
"We're both ok, nothing happened." Either she was naturally calmer than most civilian children, or she didn't understand how much danger she'd been in.
Scrimgeour interrupted the girl's attempts at reassurance, emerging from an interview room with a dark haired boy.
"All sorted then Lysander, we really can't thank you enough for bringing him in, old boy. And thanks to you two too, you did very well." Scrimgeour said, grinning at the children. Scrimgeour was trying his best to be personable, but the man's stern face wasn't made for friendly expressions.
Lysander's answering smile was slightly weak. "Yes, well, we've learned to listen to Katherine's feelings about people."
Alan watched as Scrimgeour escorted them out, eyes drawn helplessly to the girl. She moved smoothly, less like a civilian child than most of the children here. More like a child with combat training, like the clan kids from Before. Alan stowed that thought as the group left the office and went to read the statements.
He retreated to his desk with the documents, trying to push memories of the girl he failed out of his head and look at the situation objectively.
The three witness statements were consistent with each other. Sylvanus Urien saw a rat under a hedge in the Urien manor grounds, with what he reported as "weird looking magic." Katherine Darby felt that the rat was evil and should be contained. The two children carried the unconscious rat inside and put him in a cage they found in the attic. They brought their concerns about the 'evil rat' to Lysander Urien, who suspected the rat might be Pettigrew and spelled the cage unbreakable. They flooed to the ministry, and Pettigrew woke up in the ministry floo hall.
The most likely theory was that whoever had been keeping Pettigrew captive had knocked him out and thrown him into Urien grounds on the assumption that the family, known for being able to find things, would notice. He had no way to tell if the person who had been holding Pettigrew was the man's former ally or aligned against Pettigrew himself or the Death Eaters. Alan personally suspected the same being responsible for Sirius Black's bizarre sanity. The easy power and secrecy seemed similar, and the motivation for acting for Black and against Pettigrew was likely the same.
Perhaps it was time to push Black on his secret benefactor's identity.
*
Sirius
Sirius' last meeting with Shikako had been interesting, to say the least. She'd emerged out of the shadows as usual, in the large and well-appointed cell the ministry had provided to him. He'd been a little concerned she might not be able to sneak into the ministry cells. Sirius had jumped up from his nest on the bed, tail wagging but suppressing the urge to bark happily when Shikako put a finger to her lips. She slapped sheets of paper covered in her strange runes onto each wall of his cell, and Sirius sprung forward.
"Hello Sirius." She scratched his ears affectionately. Sirius was well aware he was touch starved, and getting affection was much less awkward as a dog. Shikako was always willing to hug him and he didn't even have to ask.
He pulled back eventually and shifted back into human form. Dragging his chair closer to his bed, he gestured at it and sat himself on the bed.
"Sit, sit. How have you been?"
"I'm good. You, uh, redecorated?" She asked, glancing at the bed, desk, and small shelf of books.
He grinned. "The DMLE is really very apologetic about my continued detainment."
Shikako smiled. "I can imagine."
"How's Harry doing?" Sirius asked, leaning forward.
"He's doing well. We told him about you, now we're sure you'll be getting out. We didn't want to get his hopes up before." While Sirius was still processing her certainty in his freedom, she pulled a piece of paper out of thin air. "Here, he drew you a picture."
Sirius took the crinkled paper carefully, gently smoothing it out on his lap. His godson had drawn a picture of large black dog standing next to a boy with green eyes and messy black hair. Sirius blinked back tears, smiling at the picture. Harry was a talented artist, especially for his age. Sirius wished putting the picture on his cell wall wouldn't give his contact with his godson away.
"You're certain I'll be getting out?" Sirius finally asked, tucking the picture safely away into one of his runes.
"We've got Pettigrew." Shikako said, a grimly satisfied smile on her face. "I'm nearly done figuring out the rune arrays in the dark mark, and I think I should be able to create protective wards that target anyone with the mark once I've done that. Wherever Harry lives after he leaves the Dursley's needs to be protected. I'll arrange handing Pettigrew over to the ministry once that's done."
"You?...Merlin's balls. Alright. Um." He'd known Shikako was terrifyingly powerful, right from their first meeting, but this was different. She'd taken down and captured a death eater and it sounded like she was using him as some kind of a... lab rat? That was scary on a whole other level, even leaving aside the way she was always several steps ahead and to the side of anything he'd consider a reasonable course of action. "What's protecting him at the moment?"
"The blood wards his mother set up are functioning to protect him from anyone who doesn't live in his home. I've figured out a way to add to those so they can run on Petunia's blood, rather than her physical presence, as long as it's willingly given blood. There's a lot of layers to those wards. Any magical person who wishes him harm won't be able to find him, anyone actually attempting to hurt him would likely die in the attempt. Lily knew what she was doing, and she powered them with a willing sacrifice." Sirius hadn't realised Lily had set up illegal blood wards to protect Harry. He should have expected it of course, but still. Anything involving blood sacrifice was, technically speaking, banned dark magic. Not that Lily had much to worry about there - if she hadn't had to use it, no one would have found out, and if she did, well. She'd be dead, and out of the influence of the DMLE.
"He's safe for now then, that's good." Sirius was sensibly choosing to focus on his godson's welfare rather than the disconcerting implications of the rest of the information Shikako had given him. He could sort through the potential clues about her motivations and abilities later.
"So, Sirius." Shikako grimaced slightly. "I need to ask a favour." Sirius straightened up. He'd been expecting something like this, nothing was free, especially with powerful beings, and he knew he'd racked up a huge debt. The awkwardness was odd but - "Please don't tell anyone about me." Uh. Sirius's brain stalled. Was that it? He owed her everything, how was that even close to equal? "I heard you told the Aurors that a spirit granted you protection from the dementors." She continued, making Sirius's heart stutter. Had he said too much? He'd been trying to be circumspect about Shikako's assistance, but he was suddenly regretting teasing the Aurors with his dementor immunity. Shit.
"That's all I've told them, nothing else. I said a spirit granted me protection, I haven't answered any of their questions past that, I said I was bound to silence since you seemed to want to keep your help secret." He forced his voice to be steady, watching her closely.
Shikako seemed relieved. "That's good. I was worried you might have said enough for someone to put two and two together and figure out it was me helping you."
Sirius was, frankly, quite confused about why Shikako wanted her aid to be secret, but if that was what she wanted, he'd help to the best of his ability.
"I'll keep your identity secret as far as I can." Sirius frowned, thinking over the circumstances that might make that difficult - he really, really wanted to avoid angering Shikako. "The Aurors are getting curious, I'm not certain they won't give me veritaserum. You could obliviate me?" Shikako looked horrified, so he backtracked. "Or, could you bind me to silence? I think there were a couple of rituals in my father's library. I don't want to be forced to give up your secrets." Shikako had switched from horrified to tense and grimacing right after he'd mentioned silencing. Sirus thought that meant she might be considering it, which was good - he'd much rather be selectively silenced than obliviated.
"Why would you let me do that?" She asked.
"You - Shikako, I owe you a debt." Didn't she understand that? She'd given him back his mind, and she was apparently ensuring he got out. She was even looking out for Harry. He owed her a debt. Hell, the house of Black owed her a debt, especially if he got out and revived this family line. He wasn't sure he wanted to do that, but Grandfather had indicated it was expected once his name was cleared. Speaking of which - "I probably need to tell my Grandfather."
Her brow furrowed. "Lord Black? Why would he need to know?" That was interesting. She was apparently unaware of the ways debts were treated among pureblood houses.
"I owe you a debt, and as the head of my family he's responsible if I die and leave it unpaid. He'll probably decide that the house of Black owes you a debt too, he was always obsessed with the strength and continuation of the most ancient and noble House of Black." He knew he'd failed to keep the disdain for his family line out of his voice.
"Even though I'm muggleborn?" She raised an eyebrow.
What? Sirius had kind of been assuming she was some sort of strange fae or spirit (dissolving into shadows was impossible for humans, it broke Walpuddle's principles of human transformation) so hearing her describe herself as muggleborn was a surprise.
Sirius stared at Shikako and tried to order his thoughts. She'd broken into Azkaban twice and captured a fully grown death eater. It made much, much more sense for her to be a spirit taking the form of a child for incomprehensible fae reasons. If she was actually a what, eight year old muggleborn girl, then he had a lot of questions, starting with how she could turn into shadow. Why was she doing any of this? How had she known he was innocent? Where were her parents? How did she even know the magical world existed? How was she deliberately using powerful magic with an immature magical core? How had she pulled off breaking into Azkaban? None of it made sense.
Some of his utter bewilderment apparently showed on his face, because Shikako spoke up after a long moment of silence.
She said "I'm a seer." Like that answered all the questions he could possibly have. He could sort of see that as an explanation for her knowledge (if she was a very powerful seer) and maybe her motivations, but it didn't start to explain the things she'd achieved or the magic she could do. It just- it didn't make sense. Sirius took a slow breath and used his years of occlumency training to tidy his swirling confusion away into a box. He could contemplate the mystery of Shikako later.
What had they been talking about? Right, debts to the house of Black.
"It doesn't matter, Grandfather will still consider a debt owed to you." He considered her immediate assumption that being a muggleborn would matter. "It's- well, my mother might have tried to ignore a debt to a muggleborn, but she was a fanatic and a nutjob. Grandfather is, well, he doesn't exactly like muggleborns, but he'd never let that get in the way of his duties to the house of Black. Honour is important to him." Arcturus would likely categorise her as 'not a real muggleborn' (Grandfather was a bigoted old fuck, so of course anyone magically powerfully wasn't 'really muggleborn') but he'd treat her with respect.
Shikako appeared to contemplate that for a moment, gazing into the middle distance. "So he'd be willing to do me a favour at some point in the future."
Sirius thought that was understating how much Arcturus would be willing to do to repay the being who gave him a chance to restore his house, but what he said was "Yes."
"Would he be willing to swear keep my identity from anyone else?" Shikako asked hesitantly.
"He'd be willing to keep it within the house of Black." Her eyes narrowed, and he realised how evasive that sounded, especially considering how awful a lot of his family had been. "Aunt Cassiopeia is an interfering old busybody, and she and Grandfather have always been close. Trying to get him to keep information from her is a fool's errand, she'd find out anyway. It'll only make her more interested."
Shikako was grimacing. "It's really important that no one realises I'm the person who helped you. I need to avoid scrutiny for as long as possible."
Sirius was really uncomfortable with the nervousness of the impossibly powerful witch. It was disconcerting, and Sirius hoped he'd be able to figure out what she was scared of, so he could ensure he never went anywhere near it. "Could you bind them to silence at a distance?" Honestly he had no idea what she was and wasn't capable of, and if it helped her trust them, that could only be good. Merlin, what had happened to a muggleborn kid to make her act this wary?
"I- maybe." She said, pulling a notebook out of thin air. "Could you tell me what you know about magical binding rituals?"
Sirius obliged, resorting to occlumency to pull out memories of decade old magical theory lessons and things he'd found in the Grimmauld Place library. Half an hour later Shikako was sitting on the floor, surrounded by sheets of paper covered in a mixture of normal runes and her own unfamiliar ones. Sirius had realised that Shikako was extremely intelligent - she had holes in her knowledge of magical theory, but once given the information she could pull together a far better understanding than he had. His benefactor also had some strange hang ups about binding runes. She'd started by sketching out a design in a different style to what Sirius had seen of her runes before, and he'd caught flickers of anger and disgust. The design she'd eventually settled on shared almost nothing with that design. From what he understood, it would prevent him from revealing her identity by paralysing him if he intended to communicate it to anyone who didn't also have the rune array.
"Alright. I think the best way to keep things secret is to disassociate the person who helped you from Katherine Darby." Shikako said, confusing Sirius for a moment. "So, if you tell anyone who asks about..." She sighed in resignation. "Shikabane-hime who broke into Azkaban and protected you from dementors using the power of Gelel, and has bound you to silence on the details. Then no one should connect that to me." She gave him a wry smile as he committed those details to memory.
"What's Gelel?" He asked, curious about the details that had flowed from her lips so easily.
"Gelel is a god I...encountered." She sounded wistful. "We were stars."
Sirius closed his mouth and tried to control his expression of shock. Thankfully she didn't seem to be paying attention. Merlin's balls. Well, if being chosen by a god was the explanation for her ... everything then that explained a good deal more than being a seer did. Sirius had been taught about the old powers as a child, but he'd never expected to encounter anything to do with them. The girl (priestess?) looked up, and Sirius tucked away yet another world-changing revelation for later examination.
"So, how does the binding work?" It wasn't the most subtle change of subject, but it wasn't terrible, considering how off balance he felt.
"Ah, right." She shuffled the papers, placing the final version of the binding in front of him. It was a series of concentric circles in three separate scripts. "So, you just put your hand in the middle and swear to keep the secrets of Shikabane-hime."
Sirius placed his hand in the centre of the pattern. "I, Sirius Orion Black, swear to keep the secrets of Shikabane-hime." He felt the binding take, twining through his magic with a burst of power and settling on his tongue.
Shikabane-hime was her true name? Was Shikako a nickname? If the binding magic had worked, then presumably she hadn't pulled a pseudonym out of nowhere. Binding magic tied to names just didn't work like that. As far as he knew, anyway. Shikako did do supposedly impossible things on a semi regular basis, so who knew.
Shikako looked at him intently for a moment before grinning. "It worked." He had no idea how she could tell, it wasn't her magic being bound, so that was yet another odd ability. "Thank you Sirius." She sounded so relieved and sincere, his heart melted a little.
"You're welcome Shikako." He said. "So, I just get them both to swear before I tell them?"
"Yep." She handed him two sheets with the same array he'd used, and he turned away to tuck them into one of his storage runes.
When he looked back over she was stifling a yawn. "You should get home, it's late."
"Yeah." She mumbled. "Eight year olds need a lot of sleep."
When Shikako had left Sirius collapsed onto his bed, head spinning with the various revelations the girl had dropped on him.
*
Alan
Alan entered the interview room with his usual offering of tea, and froze for a split second as he registered Sirius's magic. He covered his moment of hesitation with a cheerful greeting and put the tea tray down on the table.
Sirius's magic was subtly different. His usual warm tones were intertwined with something that felt vast and starry, but somehow familiar. Now he though about it, Sirius's magic had always had a twist of that power around his heart, but now it was far stronger, weaving through his magical core and twisting into a knot in the back of his mouth.
The confirmation that Sirius's benefactor could slip through ministry security was unsurprising but still concerning. What had they done, and why now? Alan was less sure the break ins were actually a spirit than most of his coworkers. He had the advantage of being able to sense magic, along with more stealth training than anyone here would ever have. Azkaban wasn't truly impenetrable, and he wouldn't be surprised if some bright magical managed to sneak in and out. It was probably an A-rank equivalent, but nowhere near impossible.
Alan was glad he'd managed to build a solid relationship with Sirius, because he doubted the man would talk about his mysterious 'spirit' without that trust. He smiled at Sirius across the table, handing over a mug of tea.
"So, some kids found Pettigrew today." He kept his tone casual and focused on Sirius's reactions.
"Really? That's a relief!" Sirius's surprise was less than convincing. "Wait, kids? Are they ok?" His concern on the other hand, sounded genuine.
"They're fine, they found him unconscious, and he didn't wake up until they got to the ministry." Alan reassured him. "Funny thing though, Pettigrew doesn't remember the last six months."
Sirius's laugh was vicious.
"Hm." He grinned, giving Sirius the impression he shared in the mirth. "The running theory in the department is that whoever gave you immunity to dementors was keeping him prisoner."
Sirius tensed for an instant (Bingo) but then smirked and relaxed, like he'd just remembered something.
"Unfortunately for the DMLE, I'm bound to silence on the details." Sirius smirked.
Sirius's smug confidence made Alan think it was an actual magical binding rather than an simple vow. That might account for the changes to Sirius's magic, which was incredibly frustrating. Alan wished he'd done this interview before Sirius had been bound to silence. He didn't want to accidently strip Sirius of his magic with overzealous use of veritaserum. The DMLE had enough to deal with, no one needed a repeat of the bloody Harold Scrope incident.
"What can you tell me about your mysterious benefactor then?" Details weren't everything, he might at least be able to figure out if Sirius's benefactor was human or not.
Sirius looked thoughtful. "Her name" he began cautiously "is -" the foreign magic twisted, snapping around Sirius's own, and the man froze. The magic withdrew, and the infuriating man grinned cheerfully at Alan. "Huh, that wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting."
Alan stared. That wasn't a binding that punished someone for breaking it, which was very much the normal course of magical bindings. This seemed to physically prevent Sirius from speaking, without harming him at all. It was nothing at all like the way wizards and witches used magic. That was a mark against his 'competent human' theory.
It also meant that while they could use veritaserum without harming Sirius or rendering him a squib, it wouldn't get them any of the information the DMLE wanted.
"Finished testing the binding?" He enquired, lifting an eyebrow.
"Yep." Sirius seemed to be unaware of how irritating his smug expression was, and it would be counter to Alan's purposes to enlighten him.
"What does your mystery benefactor want you to tell us then?" Anything left out of a binding that powerful was left out on purpose.
"She uses the power of Gelel." Sirius's lighthearted demeanour gave way to understated awe.
"This was the power she used to protect you from the Dementors?"
"Yeah. And to get in and out of places, I think."
That was vague and unenlightening.
"Do you know where Pettigrew was hiding?" Hopefully the mysterious 'she' wouldn't have considered things about Sirius's own knowledge secret.
"No idea. I didn't even know she was going after Pettigrew until after it happened." Sirius sprawled back in his chair, gesturing with his mug of tea.
Alan added potential skill with tracking or location spells to the worryingly long list of abilities.
"Where was the little rat hiding?" Sirius asked, a vicious gleam in his eyes.
"Pretending to be a pet and sleeping in little boys' beds." Alan grimaced. It really was a failure for the Aurors, and they were all very thankful the examinations of the Weasley chidren hadn't turned up any memory tampering.
Sirius's expression twisted. "That creepy little shit, I wish-" he cut himself off, sensibly not admitting to murderous intent during a recorded interview.
Alan nodded in agreement and decided a change of subject was in order. "Would you say your benefactor is human?"
Sirius shrugged. "Honestly I have no idea." Alan got the impression the man was sincerely bewildered, which was interesting in its own right. Was this a magical being doing a bad impression of humanity, or a witch so powerful her feats seemed inhuman? "She said Gelel was a god she encountered."
Alan focused on his breathing, keeping a friendly and quizzical expression on his face. He wasn't going to think about his own 'encounter' with a god. Alan locked the flood of terrorpainshikakonopleaseno away in the back of him mind.
"Can you tell me her name?" Alan could feel his heart pounding in his chest, he was familiar enough with his own mental state to know he should probably duck out of this interview as soon as he could.
"Shikabane-hime."
Alan was peripherally aware that the shocked recognition must be showing on his face. Shikabane-hime. It might have been two decades since he'd heard that macabre nickname but it wasn't the sort of thing you forgot.
Had she - had she survived as some kind of - he didn't know, spirit of some kind? Or was she like him, stuck in a body years too young? Oh god. Should he try to find her?
Alan thanked Sirius, collected the transcript and left, aware that his mask of calm was paper thin.
Alan found a storage cupboard and entered, casting a dozen spells on the doors before slumping against the shelves.
Shikako. His kohai was here too. He really didn't want the confirmation that she'd been sacrificed too. He'd hoped- well. He should have known better. Surviving a through and through wasn't immortality, no matter how much he'd hoped.
Alan snatched his cravat away from his throat, running his fingers over and over the unbroken skin of his throat. He tried to slow his breathing, focusing on the present. His name was Alan, not Aoba, and he was a wizard, not a shinobi.
Ten minutes later he emerged from the cupboard to report to Madam Bones, cheerful and composed as ever.
*
Sasuke
Sasuke was really starting to see what Kako meant about things spiralling out of control.
First there was the Sirius situation, which had gone from giving the man basic things in Azkaban, to kidnapping Pettigrew because he might bolt after hearing Sirius was getting a trial. Then there was keeping the rat captive for six months while they studied the dark mark. Sasuke knew the reflection seals they had produced from their study would be invaluable when fighting death eaters, even if they wouldn't work for the more powerful spells. However, he had spent six months worried his parents would discover they were keeping a death eater prisoner in the attic.
After the (thankfully smooth) handover to the Aurors, they'd realised that Sirius might accidently give away enough to tie Shikako and Katherine together. Shikako had come out of that meeting having produced three silencing seals, two of which were apparently for the elderly members of the Black family.
It make sense for Sirius to tell his head of house about the massive debt he owed them, but it was a risk to the trio. None of them had a good estimation of Lord Black or how he'd act, and it made them all uncomfortable.
Not, however, as uncomfortable as the discussion he was currently having with his parents. Sasuke would freely admit he wasn't great at the whole 'having parents' thing.
He felt that telling them about the seal Shikako was going to apply in advance was considerate, so they wouldn't worry about the visible seal on his forehead.
His parents seemed to feel he should have told them much earlier.
"Sylvanus, we just want to understand why you didn't tell us about the headaches earlier. We could have taken you to a healer." His mother was practically pleading and it was incredibly uncomfortable.
"It's not that bad, they mostly faded years ago. It's only really a problem if I go somewhere with large amounts of active magic." It would have been a problem when he went to Hogwarts, which was part of the reason Shikako had wanted to get it fixed. The headaches would have been tolerable, but would probably impact his ability to learn.
His Father's eyes narrowed. "This is why you always seemed so tired after we go to Diagon, isn't it."
"Yes." He conceded. "But Katherine's runes fix that. The headbands work, and I can turn it on and off when I need to. It's just more convenient to have it on me all the time."
"How long have you three been working on this?" His mother asked.
"A few months."
"Why didn't you ask for help?" His mother was still sounding confused and upset, it was awful.
"Katherine was sure she would manage it, so we didn't need any help." They hadn't. Kako had produced working prototypes pretty quickly, and she'd made seals for his eyes Before. He didn't really trust other people near his eyes, especially if they realised how useful his vision was. Not that they knew if his sight would transfer with his eyeballs like a Sharingan, but better safe than sorry.
Both his parents looked pained.
"We'll arrange an appointment with a Healer and a Rune master to check things over, alright Sylvanus?" It was clear his mother wasn't making a suggestion, so Sasuke nodded.
Lysander hummed thoughtfully, running his fingers over the strip of cloth bearing the seal. "Perhaps we should bring Katherine too. It's been years since my runes OWL, and I can't make head or tail of this."
Sasuke sighed and let his parents make plans.
*
Lysander
Lysander gulped the strange pink muggle "cockstail" Jo and Doug had brought to their little get together. He and Theo hadn't really thought they'd have much in common with the muggle parents of their ward, but they'd soon realised that Katherine's parents understood. They understood the difficulty of raising a child who was so clever and thoughtful and tried to solve everything themselves. A child who had abilities they didn't understand.
When Naruto had been instantly folded into the tight little world of Katherine and Sylvanus, the four of them had been quick to invite his wife's school friend and her Japanese husband along.
They met up once a week to commiserate, drink heavily, and help each other figure out how to support children with such different needs to what they expected. They all had similar problems with their intelligent and secretive children, who would ask their parents for help as an absolute last resort.
Muggle parenting books had been a revelation to the wizard raised half of their group, but were surprisingly unhelpful in situations like "my child is conducting medical experiments."
The trip to St. Mungo's had been enlightening. Sort of. It had certainly brought to light a lot of things he'd rather not have known.
Surrounded by Healers, Rune specialists and curse-breakers, Lysander had realised several things. None of the healers had a clue what was up with Sylvanus's eyes, and were certainly in no place to offer solutions. A barrage of diagnostic charms had concluded that his eyes were tied into his magic in a way none of the healers had seen before, and none could explain. Sylvanus and Katherine had been very, very quiet about that, and Lysander was suspicious. Katherine's rune-headband did function, and it let Sylvanus cut that connection at will, and it was obviously better than anything anyone else was proposing.
Katherine's skill with runes was not just beyond his rusty OWL level. It was beyond, or somehow different to, the work of rune masters several decades her senior. They had eventually figured out what each part did (with much patient explaining from Katherine) and that had led to more disturbing revelations.
Apparently Katherine and Sylvanus both considered what Curse-breaker Wykford described as "a really nasty bit of fire magic" an important part of protecting his son's eyes. Because they were worried someone would steal his son's eyeballs, dear Merlin. Had his ward not been a seer (and a proven and reliable one) he might have tried to reassure them that no one was going to steal Sylvanus's eyes. Only a fool, however, would dismiss the warnings of a seer like that. Lysander was going to have nightmares about dark wizards stealing his son's eyes, he knew it.
After some back and forth with Wykford, they had determined that it was, technically, a legal defensive magic (and when did his son learn so much about law?) and that it wouldn't go off accidently. Rune work was apparently stable like that. No one would be able to remove his son's eyeballs (eyeballs, Merlin's beard) without being incinerated.
He'd known finding Katherine at just the right time had been a blessing to his family. The Urien family magic often guided him to people or things he needed, or would need, and he had no doubt that it was that which had led himself and Sylvanus to Katherine. He was incredibly glad they'd found her, with her easy friendship with Sylvanus and sharp intelligence. Lysander worried however, that the reason they needed Katherine was something far darker. The focused devotion with which the children threw themselves into duelling, learning not like they were learning a long formalised sport, but like they would be expected to fight at any moment, that scared him.
The protective runes Jo and Doug had found carved and inked all over their house worried him too. He hadn't thought to ward their house, hadn't thought it would be needed. Katherine had, and he wondered what she saw that made her so certain of danger. Mary, who was the best of them with wards, had checked Katherine's work and added a few wand-based layers before pronouncing it secure.
The others shared his concerns, and the four parents who had magic had begun brushing up their defense skills. Makoto had taught them what Japanese magical society considered basic defense skills, while Theo taught them her more vicious hexes. They'd all been a little stumped as to how Katherine's parents could defend themselves against a wizard, until Mary remembered a younger ravenclaw boy who'd stabbed a death eater during the war. None of them had any real belief that Jo or Doug would win against a wizard, but it was better than nothing. Jo was at least enjoying her muggle knife fighting classes, even if her husband wasn't keen on exercise.
Lysander took a bracing swig of the sweet pink drink before starting, ignoring the concerned looks it gained him. "Katherine's worried someone's going to try and steal Sylvanus's eyes." He stated.
"His eyes?" Mary asked, sharing incredulous glances with the others
Lysander nodded, staring into the middle distance. "The rune thing we brought them in to check, it incinerates anyone who tries to - to remove his eyeballs."
"Oh Jesus." Doug buried his face in his hands. "That's, um... fuck, that's a concern?"
"Specifically the eyes?" Makoto's face was stuck between confused and horrified.
"Apparently." Lysander reaches for the jug and refills his glass.
"And the forehead runes will stop it?" Theo asks, clutching her glass.
"Katherine seemed confident." That at least, was reassuring.
"Well. I suppose we let them get on with it then?" Theo seemed content with the incineration of anyone who tried to hurt Sylvanus. Lysander was still trying to get over the eyeball theft bit.
"Perhaps this is a step closer to the children telling us things." Makoto mused. "He told you before, not after. It is not much, but..."
Unspoken was their mutual agreement not to push the children on their secrets. Trying to persuade a seer to tell you things they didn't think you should know was the stuff of tragedies, and they all knew it, even the muggle couple. More than that, they all shared a fear that pushing for information would drive their children to greater secrecy.
Lysander was glad their children had each other, had people they trusted completely.
Previous
So, uh, my chapters keep getting longer.
I thought this was going to be the chapter with the trial, but nope. Poor Aoba was a bit traumatised by being sacrificed to a god of pain and suffering.
The parents are freaked out by wft the kids are preparing for, and Kako hasn't quite realised how much the adults are taking cues from her. Team 7, collectively driving their parents to drink.
Tell me what you think, this is the longest thing I've ever written and I have no idea what I'm doing, so concrit welcome.
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Date: 2019-02-07 07:34 pm (UTC)