Nexus Event - Chapter 15 (Patreon)

“This is outrageous, Albus!” Lucius spat, throwing down the notice onto the older wizard's desk. The heavy, official parchment was lined with ribbons and wax seals, studded with the kind of artistic flourishes that made it impressive on more than just one level. “You can't seriously expect me to believe you're taking the word of children!”

Albus of-many-middle-names Dumbledore cleared his throat and skimmed over the document he'd just been 'given.' Adjusting his half-moon spectacles, he nodded slowly, confirming it was what he'd thought it was. “And what recourse do you expect me to take, Lucius? The Pendragon family, by all rights, appear to be the legitimate owners of the institution of Hogwarts as a whole.”

The platinum blonde wizard sneered, his gloved hand twisting on the head of his walking stick as he clearly resisted the urge to draw the concealed wand within. “I'd think contacting their parents would be the easiest manner of putting an end to this foolishness. Regardless of the status of my own family, after all, I do not allow my prepubescent child to make high-level business decisions.”

Albus nodded gamely and, pulling open a drawer, removed a similar letter from his desk before holding it out to Lucius. “A solution which I am not quite so senile as to overlook myself, despite what you and many of my detractors might prefer to believe.”

Lucius snorted and snatched the offered scroll before unrolling it and reading it.

Then he paused, returning to the top of the document, and reading it again much more slowly.

Then he stared at the words in front of him, apparently penned by one Nero Pendragon. After fully digesting the contents, his gaze drifted up to Albus once again. “They can't possibly be serious.”

Dumbledore folded his hands on his desk and entwined his fingers, creating a bridge that he laid flat against the ancient wood. “Given such a unilateral ultimatum, I am loath to test them.”

Lucius scowled, his eyes trailing back to the threat he held in his hands, which was the only thing one could truly call it.

Part of him, admittedly, found the entire situation darkly humorous given that the missive was addressed to Albus Dumbledore, of all people. The old fool direly needed humbling in his opinion, his political positions having long become a combination of do-nothing service to the status quo and mudblood-coddling that his faction was famous for. It was one thing to hand down a threat Dumbledore could do nothing against, however.

It was another to threaten Hogwarts itself.

Specifically, the Pendragons had 'reminded' Albus that the institution served at their pleasure and would be shuttered and the castle decommissioned should there no longer be a need for it. They even went further to say that 'usurpation of family property would not be tolerated under any circumstances.'

The mere thought of that happening was alien to Lucius in a way he couldn't find the words to properly articulate at the moment. Hogwarts had seen fifteen generations of the Malfoy family pass through its hall. The Malfoy family took pride in the fact that their lineage even predated the formal founding of the school, one of his ancestors having been apprenticed to Salazar himself if family legend were to be believed.

Perhaps I should dig through the archives in the sub-basement, there might be something I could use...

“Do you think they can do it?” Lucius found himself asking Albus, the question sincere in a way that felt foreign on his lips. Then again, so was this entire situation.

“Considering both young Solomon and Sara can come and go through the wards without so much as alerting me, I would not put it past them,” Dumbledore replied.

Lucius grimaced, dropping the scroll back on the old man's desk with a force that was more akin to a throw. “We cannot allow the policies of the most ancient and well-established magical education institution in Europe to be dictated by a pair of children.”

“Hmm? Why, Lucius, I would have thought you, of all people, would be more understanding of the members of a noble house exercising their traditional authority,” Albus stated, his eyes glimmering as his lips twitched.

Lucius' own blue eyes chilled to ice-like chips.

So that was how it was going to be.

Again, in another situation Lucius would have found the entire scenario vaguely amusing. To have Dumbledore of all people tacitly standing up for the authority of a magical lineage over the rule of law and governmental processes was absurd enough to turn heads. Likewise, he wasn't blind enough to overlook the fact that he, himself, was advocating to undermine many of those same rights he'd spent much of his adult life campaigning to preserve.

“Regardless of who the Pendragons may have once been, they are not the family they once were. No member of their family had taken up permanent residence in the isles since the fifteenth century. They're practically foreigners.” Lucius stamped his walking stick into the stone floor of Dumbledore's office to declare the point.

“Having had the opportunity to dig up some information on the matter, I must disagree,” Albus countered. “In addition to the grounds of Hogwarts, the Pendragon family owns a number of small plots of land throughout the isles as well as several islands. Regardless of where they have chosen to take up residence for the past several centuries, their establishment predates all of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

Sensing that this conversation was going nowhere, Lucius changed his tact. “I see you're committed to this madness, then. As I still hold one of my seats on the Governor's Board, I would like to formally request a list of the other board members, as is my due.”

Dumbledore was silent for a moment, then nodded as he stroked his long beard. “The new board has not been finalized, but once it is I will see that a full list is sent out to each member.”

“See that you do,” Lucius stated coolly, turning to the floo and hiding his smirk. If the list hadn't been finalized, then there was still hope to mitigate some of the damage.

All I need to do is maneuver two children into my political camp. How hard can that be? Perhaps the girl might even make a suitable match for Draco?

…

“Nice of you to finally stop by,” Sirius opened, picking up his lemonade to take a sip. “Even if I still think this might be a fever dream while I'm dying in Azkaban, it's a good trip. Didn't even know the old noggin was still creative enough to imagine the Merlin-be-damned Pendragons showing up to bail my ass out of prison.”

I huffed a quiet laugh and summoned a maid-golem to pour me a glass as well. “I'm sure you still have some marginal amount of creativity left in your skull, Mr. Black-”

“Please, call me Sirius. Mr. Black was my no-good father,” he grinned weakly, then sobered. “Anyone who did what you did can call me by my first name.”

“Then call me Solomon. I hope this is the start of something approaching a friendship, but it's a sad reality that building personal bonds will have to come later. Suffice to say, replacing you with a body-double wasn’t all that easy.”  A damned lie. It had been incredibly simple. Basically just adding on a glamor from Willow to one of the maid golems and using the teleporter to bypass all the wards. “At the moment, I need to present you with a choice regarding your future.”

Sirius took a deep breath and sat up straighter, putting his drink aside for the moment. “Well, you got me out of that hell, you've been feeding me well, and that angel of yours has gotten me back to something approaching good health in record time. You should know, though, if you're going to ask me to do something shady, you should know that I'm actually-”

“Innocent, I know.” I waved him off, much to his obvious surprise. “I had one of my agents capture Peter Pettigrew and dose him with truth serum to make sure before retrieving you from Azkaban.”

Sirius stared vacantly at me for a long moment before jumping up suddenly and taking a step forward-

Then Cassandra was there, blocking his path and looking him dead in the eye in a way that caused him to freeze like a statue.

The escaped convict took a shuddering breath, looking over the small girl to where I was still seated. “Where's the rat bastard?!”

“I'll tell you after you're done here,” I stated calmly, taking another sip of my drink. “I'll ask you to calm down, Sirius, and hear out your options. Especially given that one of them includes the choice to kill Peter, if you decide to.”

Cass shot me a grimace, but beyond a sense of regret passing invisibly between us she made no overt move to reject the proposal.

“I don't suppose I get to choose to kill the rat right now, huh?” Sirius asked, scowling and pacing before shooting the small asian girl a look. “Where'd she come from, anyway?”

“Cassandra is the agent I sent to retrieve Pettigrew,” I replied, smiling as Cass preened under a look of surprise and disbelief from Black as he pointed a single finger at her.

“That little slip of a girl?” Sirius asked, making Cass roll her eyes. “What'd she do, set a trap? Pretend to be lost to keep him off-guard? Start cry-oh god it hurts-shiteshiteshite!”

Watching as Cass took the grown man's finger in two of her own and incapacitated him by forcing him to the ground by hyperextending the joint until he had to fold or allow it to break, I chuckled. “Even if you were having the best day of your life and had a spell halfway off your lips, I'd still bet on Cassandra every time.”

“Le Fay's tits! Fine, I give!” Sirius shouted, Cass releasing his finger to prance back to my side, a looming shadow in the otherwise bright afternoon sun. Giving the girl another wary glance as he nursed his abused finger, Sirius leveraged himself back up into his chair. “Alright, Solomon. So what are these choices you're offering me?”

“The first is using my family's leverage to get you a proper trial, since you never had one. This would, by necessity, involve handing Pettigrew over to the authorities, though I would use some degree of family magic in order to ensure he did not escape custody.” Sirius frowned thoughtfully at my lead-in, rubbing at his chin. “The upside here, obviously, is that you could reattain a legal identity by which you could have custody of Harriet-”

The older man's breath hitched and he stiffened.

“-you would also be entitled to inherit all of the Black Family properties and finances-”

“-if Old Man Pollux sees fit to let me,” Sirius interjected. “Though I guess my mother might have reinstated me after I got thrown in prison. Crazy bitch.”

“Your mother's been dead for about five or six years ago,” I waved him off. “I believe she did reinstate you into the family, though.”

“Crazy bitch,” Sirius barked a laugh, the sound hollow and damaged as he clenched his eyes briefly before sucking in a deep breath. “Yeah, okay. But what about Pollux and Uncle Cygnus? They still kicking?”

“Both of them are, but they're in poor health. I could arrange for them to make you the formal head for the entire family by offering them a contract which would both cure their conditions and restore them a measure of their youth. They'd still retain their political influence, but it would be at your disposal to use as you wish.”

That, I'm pretty sure, was a deviation from the canon material. If I recall correctly, pretty much every member of the House of Black senior to the current adult generation. They're on their last legs, though, so it isn't much of a deviation. I'll still use it to my best advantage, though.

Sirius chewed on his lip for a moment. “But I don't get to kill the rat... and I'd be dancing to your tune, wouldn't I?”

“The fact that you're recovered enough to see that tells me I made the right choice in waiting to present you with your options. I'd much rather you go into this agreement with both eyes open instead of being blindsided when I require the Black Family votes, magic libraries, and financial resources.”

Sirius grimaced. “So what's the other choice, then?”

“You get to kill Peter Pettigrew and live up to your reputation as a secret Death Eater agent,” I stated, making Sirius blink. “I'll be staging a prison break in a few weeks and either signing up all of the Death Eaters with binding contracts or killing them off. I need a leader to ride herd on them who isn't completely insane. If it isn't you, I'll have to find someone else.”

Sirius stared blankly at me for a few long seconds. “Okay, I'm going to need you to explain that...”

I explained that.

All of that.

Sirius put his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes. “I never thought I'd voluntarily take my family's Wizengamot seat and become a career politician, but you're making it really tempting. Merlin's sagging ballsack, are you sure those are my only two choices?”

I shrugged. “You could stay here, retired, and endeavor to not cause any problems. I'd get in contact with Remus Lupin and you and he could be Uncles to Harriet and help raise her. Lord knows she needs some kind of adult presence in her life.”

“Who ended up taking her in, anyway? I've heard about the Longbottoms and can't imagine Augusta would have the time for a surrogate granddaughter,” Sirius stated, rubbing at his chin. “And I can't imagine anyone would have let Moony raise her.”

“Lily's sister Petunia.” Sirius' face blanked, his mouth slackening. “Dumbledore made the decision that blood magic tied to her last remaining family would serve best to protect her. In his defense, she grew up safe and secure. Her accommodations were not truly suitable for a child, but neither were they truly dangerous to her health. She was fed, if not precisely as well or as often as she should have been. I've removed her from that environment on the basis that I'm solving the Voldemort-” Sirius flinched. “-issue shortly.”

“Man, you Pendragons are on another level,” Sirius sighed. “You've really got almost all of these... horcruxes tracked down?”

“We have all of the horcruxes. We're just missing what's left of Voldemort's primary soul right now.” The Black wizard looked confused. “The part of his soul that hasn't been stuck inside of an object and is, instead, flying around a forest feeding off animals right now.”

“Ah.” Sirius muttered, taking a moment to shiver under the hot sun. “That's some seriously fucked up magic, tearing apart your own soul.”

“It's made worse by the fact that his early attempts were extremely rough,” I stated. “The diary he created using the death of Myrtle Warren-”

“Bugger me,” Sirius muttered, his eyes wide.

“-was an especially large and ragged piece of his soul. It's nowhere near half, like some authors writing on the subject have speculated, but I'd estimate it around thirty percent at the time of excision.” I stated, remembering what Willow and Illyana had explained to me. “The others have far less, with the Gaunt Ring possessing something like half of that, and the others less still. Of course, it doesn't add up perfectly. Like any wound, even the ones inflicted by the process of creating a horcrux heal. If slowly. So, there's something like one hundred and fifty percent of the total, with both the hocruxes themselves and the primary soul growing out. Voldemort himself has perhaps one third of that.”

“This conversation is just getting more and more disturbing. Are you sure you want to bring a monster like that back?” Sirius looked white as a sheet. “How are you even going to do it, anyway? Got some magic glue or something?”

I shook my head gravely. “It often takes the same price to undo something as it takes to do it in the first place.”

Sirius jerked, standing upright in a rush as he stared at me. “You can't possibly mean-?”

“One life for each horcrux,” I nodded, feeling Cass' pain and sadness. Underneath that, though, there was an undercurrent of resolve far stronger.

“You can't do that!” Sirius cried, slamming his hands down on the table and knocking over both our drinks. “I won't let you!”

“Pretending as though you have a choice in these events,” I stated and leaned back, unmoved. “Rest assured, though, I'm not a deranged lunatic like Voldemort. The people I've picked do not, perhaps, deserve this fate, but they have earned it.”

“Earned it?” Sirius asked, staring at me in horror. “Nobody can earn-”

A maid-golem appeared and handed me a file. I looked from the small folder to the scared and angry man. “Read it. Then tell me that again, and make me believe you mean it.”

Sirius frowned at me, then snatched the folder from the maid-golem and practically tore it open.

His eyes lingered on the contents for a timeless moment, the sound of the surf in the distance washing over the growing horror in his expression. Abruptly, he fell to his knees, vomiting uncontrollably.

I did the man the favor of looking away as he emptied his stomach.

“Th-that... I mean...” Sirius breathed heavily.

“Do you want the files for the other two-hundred and thirty other children?” I asked, making the man freeze completely. “I have information on the ones who didn't live through what he did to them as well. Would you like those? He was targeting his thirty-sixth as we captured him. I can put you in front of those children's parents, those of which have them, at least. Do you want to ask them about the fate he's earned?”

“Stop.” Sirius almost begged. “I believe you. You were right... just, stop.”

I looked away again as the man mopped at his eyes with his sleeve.

“I'm sorry, you didn't deserve to see that,” I sighed. “But that was the only way I thought you would believe me.”

Sirius took a shuddering breath. “You're probably right on that mark, even if I want to find a bottle of Ogden's to make sure I won't ever remember anything I just saw.”

“According to Angela, alcohol would react badly with your current medications, so I can't allow that. Still, I hope you understand how seriously I'm taking this matter. Once he's been resurrected, I'll either kill him for good or he'll be bound by the type of magical contract that will make him wish he was dead if he tries to break it.”

“I'm still not sure about this whole idea, but... you seem to have things under control. And you got that-that thing out of Harriet, too. Even thinking about something like that... ugh, nightmarish.” Sirius sighed. “When can I see her?”

I hummed. “When you have an answer to my question. I think it would be best if you avoided meeting her before then. At least, if you know what you're going to do, you know what kind of relationship you can have with her.”

Sirius nodded slowly. “Yeah, that's... that makes sense. I can do that. I've got a lot to think about, anyway. She's fine, though? Happy?”

I nodded. “Very. In fact, we're planning her eleventh birthday party at the moment. I think she's figured out something is happening, even if she doesn't know exactly what at this point.”

“Eleventh birthday, huh?” Sirius smiled, an achingly painful thing full of longing. “What are you doing for it?”

“There's an American restaurant with games and amusements on the mundane side of things we'll be visiting. She'll have plenty of time for magical parties in the coming years, I want her to stay familiar with the non-magical world.” I explained.

Sirius frowned, but nodded. “As long as she has fun, I don't really care which side of things she ends up on. When's it happening?”

“Next week. Give me your answer by then and you can come,” I stated, turning to walk away. “Maid, clean up that mess. Cass, c'mon, we've got things to do.”

My silent shadow fell into step behind me.

“I'm sorry.” It was as much of a confession as an apology on my part.

I felt her refusal. “Bruce... there were things he regretted, at the end.”

“I have the feeling not resorting to murder wasn't one of them,” I replied.

There was a flicker within Cassandra's normally quiet demeanor. “Sometimes there is no better way.”

I reached out, grasping her hand. “There's a lot of him inside me. So much so that I'm tempted to disagree on general principle, but... it's like I said to Sirius. I don't like saying anyone 'deserves' something. It makes me into the judge, jury, and executioner. But there are lines. Lines that people cross willingly again and again.”

Cassandra nodded, looking understanding, if regretful. “Earned, not deserved.”

~~~

A much-awaited chapter to discuss some consequences. I had some fun with this chapter and feel like my batteries are recharged after a stressful week. Thank you for tolerating my misadventure into one of my less popular stories.

Now back to Winning Peace! Woo!

I'll have that and a chapter of the mainline Industrious timeline.

Rock on, stay awesome, and thank you again for all the support!