Chapter Text
16.7.1938
I found you today. I saw you going to your classes. You had these robes on that looked almost like wizard robes. I asked someone about them and they said they were scholar robes. It seems like you are the top Chemistry student in Cambridge for your year.
I skimmed the minds of some of your friends in passing, I do hope you will forgive me. You seem really happy. They all really like you. I meant to bring you home immediately, but I couldn’t help but feel that you were happier here than you ever were back at Grimmauld place. I couldn’t help but feel like you found somewhere you belonged.
I bumped into you anyway, I couldn’t help it. I summoned your handkerchief and made up some story that you dropped it and handed it to you. I looked so much like a muggle in my disguise, I blended in flawlessly. But you stared at me for a long time.
“Do I know you?” You asked, rubbing at the back of your neck. You did that when you were a kid too, rubbing your neck, I mean.
I said, “No, I just have one of those faces,” and disappeared back into the crowd, before I could change my mind and tell you everything. I wanted to tell you; tell you that you are my brother, that you know me better than anyone, that you are the person who taught me how to walk and how to love and how to smile. But that would have been selfish. You are successful now. You are loved. You are happy.
Things with Grindelwald and our family are going crazy. You’re better off without us.
It hurts though. I don’t expect it will ever stop.
***
Marius takes an immediate step back at the appearance of the strange creature, perturbed by the words. "You…you know me?"
The creature looks anguished. "Master Marius must be going," he repeats, tugging on his ears. "Mistress is ordering Kreacher to lock poor Master Marius out of the house and he is never to be coming back. Never, never, never."
Marius has the strongest sense of deja vu, standing in the dusty hallway and staring at the elf, because that is what he is, isn't he? "I've been here before," he says, and knows it to be true. "I grew up here, didn't I?"
"Kreacher, stop that," Sirius shouts at the elf, who has started to hit himself and mutters about how he has failed by letting 'poor Master Marius' return. The elf stops, looking deeply uncomfortable and miserable. Marius wishes the elf looked happier. He has a thought, out of nowhere: the elf used to look much younger.
Sirius says, "I am master of this house now, am I not?"
"Dirty Master Sirius is the owner, bad day for Blacks, bad day," the elf mutters sullenly.
Sirius kneels down in front of the elf and looks him directly in the eye. "Then listen here, you horrid sack of bones. I order whatever my mother or grandmother or whichever wretched family member said about Marius being kept out of this house to be null and void. He is now and forever after welcome at Grimmauld Place."
Kreacher looks up at Marius, his ears raising and a look of genuine astonishment bright in his beady black eyes. And then, the elf bursts into tears.
Sirius stands up and looks back to Marius with a shocked expression. "I think I broke him."
Marius looks at Sirius with disappointment. "You will never call him a sack of bones again. What is wrong with you?"
Sirius looks at the ground, and looks as if he will say something, only just then, Kreacher lets out a particularly large wail. The elf, gulping and sobbing, lurches forward and embraces Marius around the waist. He sniffles into Marius' button-down. "You is coming home. After so many years, you is being home!" He pulls away, a fanatical gleam entering his wet eyes. He rubs his nose. "Master Marius' rooms are not being ready. I is going to prepare them." With a pop, the elf disappears.
Narcissa says into the sudden silence, "Oh dear, I do hope Kreacher realizes this is merely a visit and Marius is not moving in permanently."
Sirius grunts. "He's never been nearly so excited about me. I haven't seen him like this since Reg—" He trails off, looking down again.
Marius has a soft smile as he walks further inside the dark entry hallway. "Kreacher's always been excitable." He frowns then, feeling all at once out of place. He shouldn't know that. He didn't know that even yesterday, but something about being in the house makes him feel like he knows nothing and everything at once.
Harry slips his hand into Marius'. It's grounding. Harry says softly, "I need the loo."
"It's just down here, let me show you." Without any instructions, Marius leads Harry to a guest powder room. After Harry finishes, they make their way to the kitchen together. Harry, Draco, and Ron go off to explore, and Marius finds himself drawn down to the cellar. His feet know which spot in the wall opens the door with the right staircase.
The cellar smells like home in a way he cannot quite explain. Some of the wine in the store looks unfamiliar, but there are other bottles he feels he spent hours looking at when hiding from shrill shouts above. He knows he has been here. A whole lifetime of memories seems locked within these walls, just waiting to come out.
When he emerges, he makes his way to the tapestry room and stops, staring at the family tree.
Sirius comes to stand next to him. "We added you back in. Well, you, and Alphard, and Lyra. A few others, too." He sounds proud.
Marius looks over all the names, all the family. It's beautiful to see them all together. He tries to think if any of them mean anything to him beyond the vague sense of recognition. "Thank you. It must have been a great effort."
"Took Draco and me a long time," Sirius affirms. "Worth it."
Marius' hands trace over the names, pausing on one. "Dorea." His voice catches. "I named my oldest daughter Dorea. My wife thought it was a crazy name, but I just had this sense that it was the very best name I could give her. That it would mean she would be smart, and kind, and everything fun in the world." His fingers tremble against the silver thread. "I remembered almost nothing from before they dropped me in London. I couldn't even remember my own name quite right. But somehow, her name was still in there. Still waiting."
He looks at the silver threads on her name. It is the same color as every other Black in his generation, the same as Lyra's. It has the same color as his own sisters and brother. "Dorea died, didn't she?"
Sirius rests his own fingers on the name next to his: Regulus, just as silver as Dorea. "She did."
Marius tries to think about a girl, younger than him, named Dorea. He barely remembers her. Dark hair, silver eyes, maybe a hint of a laugh and the ghost of her hand in his. But the grief he feels in that moment is overwhelming, as if his heart is being cleaved in two.
Marius takes a treminling breath. "I used to run long distances, did you know that?"
Sirius shakes his head. If he is surprised by the non-sequitor, he doesn’t show it.
Marius wonders if he commonly rambles, or if Sirius just trusts that whatever he says will connect somehow. "I used to run 100 kilometer races. Then one day, I couldn't run them as fast and I didn't recover as well after. Then they needed to replace my knees, and then they needed to fuse one of my spine plates. I couldn't run at all after that." He wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. "But I still run all the time in my dreams. The thing is, Sirius, you wake up and realize that you can still imagine yourself doing all the things you did when you were younger, but your body can't do them anymore."
Sirius scoffs, but it sounds hollow. "Sounds terrible. Me, I'll stay young forever."
"But it's the most important thing, too." Marius' voice is thick. "Aging is the last human thing we all do. My knees often ache, but it's a familiar ache, almost like a friend now. Getting old isn't for the weak, but it's something we should all…" He looks at Dorea's name, at Lyra's, at all the silver names surrounding him. "We should all get the chance to do."
Sirius runs his fingers over Regulus' name again, more slowly this time. "Maybe the best of us burn out when they're the brightest."
"And what a tragedy that is." Marius' tears fall freely now. "How strange. I had a brother and two sisters with magic, and yet, I, the squib, am the only one that lived." His hand finds Dorea's name again, as if touching it could bring her back. "The only one who got old. The only one who got achy knees and gray hair and grandchildren. And I didn't even remember them while I went on and had a great life in a way they never had a chance to live."
Sirius turns his back to the tapestry and stares up at the chandelier in the room, cobwebs hanging between every candle stick. His voice is rough. "We're the last of a noble house, you and me."
Marius looks at the tapestry, scanning for any golden names. Andromeda and Nymphadora Tonks shine out in the sea of silver. Draco and Narcissa glow as well. But Sirius is correct: the only two members with 'Black' as a last name are the two of them.
It is a strange feeling to learn on the same day that he had three siblings and that they are all dead. Too sudden. Too final. He keeps looking back at Dorea's name. More than running, more than being young again, more than anything, he thinks that he has always wanted to talk to Dorea again. To tell her he was sorry he forgot her. To tell her he carried her name across worlds without even knowing why. It’s the worst feeling to remember someone he loves and lose them in the same breath.
For a long moment, neither of them moves. Two men, one old and one young, stand before the ghosts of their family. They are the last of the Blacks and they stand surrounded by everyone they've lost.
"May all their memories be for a blessing," Marius whispers, and the words feel too small, too insufficient for the weight of all that silver thread.
There is a loud pop, and Kreacher reappears in the room. “Master Marius,” he says, bowing low, “Your room is being ready for you.”
Marius clears his throat. Kreacher holds out a mug he seems to have conjured out of thin air. Marius takes the mug with a quiet “thank you,” which causes Kracher’s ears to wiggle in a distinctly pleased manner. Marius takes a small sip, and feels a good deal warmer.
“Three parts cream to one part Earl-Grey,” Kreacher says. “Master Marius it is your favorite.”
The drink tastes nostalgic. Marius’ hands curl over the mug. It is unfairly delicious and he is off-kilter knowing that Kreacher has remembered something so trivial for so long, something that Marius himself didn't even know. “You’re right. It is my favorite. I’d forgotten.” He has forgotten so many things. Matius has always wanted to remember everything. He used to dream about knowing everything before he was found in London. Standing in his childhood home, Marius wonders for the first time if he will be strong enough to remember it all.
***
Bellatrix joins Narcissa on one of her "shopping trips" at the last minute, so Narcissa is forced to go robes shopping instead of going back to work with Dumbledore. They believe other than Harry, only one Horcrux is unaccounted for.
Bellatrix hums alongside Narcissa as they head to a dress company under Rowle's management, an establishment that won't bat an eye at a convict who escaped from Azkaban.
"We can get you some new robes too," Narcissa says, quite on auto-pilot. "Spun Onyx would suit you so well."
Bellatrix curls her lip. "Does it ever get tiring?"
Narcissa keeps her face neutral. "Does what ever get tiring, dear sister?"
"'Dear Sister,'" Bellatrix mocks in a high-pitched voice. "That! Pretending to be vapid and sweet. You are a viper wearing lipstick and you never break character. Doesn't it exhaust you?"
Narcissa recognizes this mood. Bellatrix is sharp and clear this afternoon. Her sister has good days and bad days. There are days when she's lucid enough to see through everyone's facades and days when she can barely see past her own delusions. Today is dangerously perceptive, which means Narcissa needs to be careful.
She frowns, trying to figure out the right thing to say. "I am not vapid," she says, pretending to be more offended than she really is.
"No," Bellatrix agrees easily. "But you let them all think you are. Even the Dark Lord is amused by you but has no idea how clever you are. It's why you ended up married to the toe-rag you call a husband. Even our parents had no idea about who you really are under all your courtesy and creamy blush and amethyst robes."
"Did it ever occur to you that I like my cosmetics, robes, hair, and courtesies? That maybe I wanted to be married and that having a child has been my greatest joy in life?"
Bellatrix snickers, like it is a joke. "You play at it well, but you are like me on the inside. I know you are. You were a Slytherin too, and the hat was quicker with you than with me or any of our cousins. Something other than being the best housewife drives you, I just don't know what it is."
Narcissa feels a trickle of unease. Bellatrix knows her, truly knows her, much better than anyone else. At least she does on days like this, when her mind is clear enough to remember who Narcissa used to be before the masks became permanent. Of course her older sister would see that Narcissa is more than she seems, more than a clueless, non-threatening housewife. Narcissa tries to think of an angle her sister might understand, one that would remove suspicion but be believable. "I want to be remembered," she says quietly as they enter the shop.
Bellatrix narrows her eyes. "Remembered?"
"So many women in our families are reduced to footnotes as the 'wife of so-and-so.' I want to be more than that. I want to be recorded as the reason why the Malfoy family lived in great wealth for centuries. I want to be recognized for making the family prosperous. I don't want to just be a single sentence in our family history books."
Bellatrix pauses, pondering. Narcissa can see her sister's mind working, can see the moment the explanation slots into place with whatever version of reality Bellatrix is constructing today. "So you do have an ego, somewhere under all that courtesy. An ambition for being in history. That does sound just like you." Bellatrix brightens, and for a moment she looks almost like the sister Narcissa remembers from childhood. "Worry not, sweet little sister. If you help our master fulfill his glorious purpose, you will be more than just a footnote. You'll be written about forever."
As his lapdog, only, Narcissa thinks but doesn't say. Instead, Narcissa smiles, as if joyful at the idea, and lies through her teeth. "I do hope that is how it all goes." She wonders if Bella even realizes how thoroughly she's been used, how Voldemort took a brilliant witch with an unsteady mind and turned her devotion into fanaticism. Narcissa rarely lets herself grieve the sister she might have had. She hates Voldemort for many things. The first time she hated him was when she realzied that he gave her sister certainty when her own thoughts wouldn't settle, gave her purpose when her moods swung too wildly for anyone else to handle. He made her feel chosen instead of broken, and then broke her so far that she has no hope to ever recover.
The workers at the store all bow respectfully and Narcissa beams back at them. "My sister came today! Please let's have her try on the Onyx robes I asked about ahead of time."
"This way, ma'am," one worker says to Bellatrix.
Bellatrix looks at Narcissa plaintively, and there's something almost childlike in the expression. It is so at odds with the woman who tortures Muggles for sport. "I don't need new robes."
Narcissa glances at the old and dirty brown robes, remnants of Azkaban and everything after. "But sweet sister, don't you ever get tired of pretending to be anything less than the dazzling beauty we both know you are?"
In the end, Bellatrix stands in front of a mirror with a thousand needles zipping this way and that, adjusting the deep black fabric. Narcissa laughs the whole time, feeling truly happy, or at least, feeling something close to it.
If she shuts out all the noise and turns off her brain a little, in moments like this, she can pretend everything is okay. She can pretend she is just shopping with her older sister, the way they used to before Hogwarts, before Bella's moods grew darker and more erratic, before their parents refused to acknowledge there was anything wrong. She can pretend that there is no insanity and no mark burned into Bella's skin by a monster who saw her vulnerability and exploited it. Narcissa can pretend no bitterness lives between them, and that they are friends.
It is so easy, when her sister is having a good day like this one, to pretend.
***
The grown crystals are completed as August is looking across to September and the school year begins to loom ever-larger. On a bright summer day, unseasonably hot, with bright blue skies, Harry, Marius, Severus Snape, and Nicholas Flamel all come together in the Cokeworth laboratory.
“This is the moment of truth,” Harry says. “Time to test the concept.”
Severus takes a deep breath. “If this works…it will change everything.” The hope in his eyes seems like it was put there despite his best efforts. Harry holds his breath. He wants this to work. He wants it to work so badly, he doesn’t even quite know how to hold the desire.
Nicholas Flamel's laboratory smells like burnt copper and old parchment. Snape conjures a stool and sits in the center of the room. He rolls up his left sleeve and reveals the dark mark. Harry startles at it. It looks more alive than when he saw it last. The mark seems like it is alive. The snake’s tongue flickers and the skull’s eye sockets are hollow and endless. Harry’s scar prickles.
"This will be extremely painful," Flamel says matter-of-factly. His wrinkled, paper-thin hands are steady as he arranges vials and instruments on a silver tray. "The magic is anchored to your very soul, Severus. Extracting it is not unlike extracting a piece of yourself."
"I am aware," Snape says, his voice clipped. “I did help you come up with this.”
“Defenesiveness will not make it hurt less,” Flamel admonishes. “Harry, dear, how many steps will this take?”
Harry swallows. “If it all goes according to plan, it should take three.”
Flamel nods. “Right you are. We must first trick it into mobility. Dark magic is parasitic; it wants to spread, to consume. We must give it the illusion of freedom. A magic trick, if you will."
Flamel uncorks a vial of something that shimmers like oil and smells like rotting flowers. They needed to use Harry’s oscillating potion to combine Flight of Magic with Flamel’s secret panacea solution. With practiced efficiency, Flamel paints it across the Dark Mark in concentric circles. The mark immediately begins to pulse, writhing more violently. Snape's jaw tightens but he makes no sound.
"Second," Flamel says, "we must give it something to move into. "
Severus holds up the crystals. "I have been growing these crystals for weeks, and feeding them drops of my blood each day. They know me. If we are right, they should even be able to accept the dark mark and trap it.”
Harry says, “We have to be right.” The crystals were his idea, and he wants to help. He doesn’t want Snape to live with this for the rest of his life. It would be too unfair.
Harry watches as Flamel places the crystals on a small bronze pedestal beside Snape's arm. He begins to draw runes with dark ink on the pedestal. The air grows thick and heavy, like breathing through wool.“A little arithmancy and runes, always needed.”
The Dark Mark begins to move.
It slides across Snape's skin, the skull distorting, stretching. Snape's breath comes faster now, his free hand gripping the edge of the stool until his knuckles go white. Sweat beads on his forehead.
"Professor?" Harry says quietly, taking a step forward.
"Stay back," Flamel commands without looking up. The runes spill out from him, drawn ever faster. "The third stage is the extraction. The mark will resist. It will fight to remain. Severus, you must let it go. You will need to focus your entire mind on it leaving you. Your entire mind. It will be wandless magic. Do not try to hold on, do not try to control the pain. Simply endure and focus your mind."
Snape nods once, his face gray. “I am ready.” His voice comes out even.
Flamel presses his wand to the Dark Mark and the crystal simultaneously. Light flares between them and it is a sickly green that makes Harry's stomach turn. The mark begins to peel away from Snape's skin like a snake that is molting, lifting into the air in ribbons of black smoke that scream silently. It ripples, then returns to his arm.
Snape gasps, then, unable to hold it in any longer. The sound is raw and agonized.
“Harry,” Flamel says, short and curt. “Come here. Place your wand to Snape.”
Harry feels sweat bead on his brow at the stress of the situation but shuffles forward and places his wand to Snape’s mark. Marius comes with him, and holds Harry’s hand. Harry is grateful for it.
Flamel lays a hand on Harry shoulder. “The mark does not like me. Perhaps it will like you better, Harry. The words are ‘Venir.’ Speak them, and convince it to come up with you.”
Harry seals himself. “Venir,” he says, imagining the mark lifting off of Snape’s arm. It stretches, ink spreading grotesquely. It hurts as he pulls it, like he is being burned alive. His non-wand hand squeezes Marius tight. There is a scream, and Harry does not know who made it. Everything hurts and there is nothing else.
"Keep going," Flamel says, and Harry can't tell if he's talking to Snape, Harry, or himself. The pain is causing dots to form in Harry's vision."It's coming. Let it come."
The black smoke spirals through the air, fighting, thrashing like a living creature trying to escape a trap. With a great shudder, the mark leaves Snape’s wand and comes up into the air as a great black serpent. Flamel immediately pushes Harry away and he stumbles back a few steps. He falls to his knees, breathing heavily, and so releived, so unbelievably relieved, to not be in pain any longer. Marius kneels down beside him, "Are you okay?" He asks urgently.
Harry nods absently, but looks to Snape and Flamel. The mark lunges back toward Snape's arm, but Flamel redirects it with his wand and forces it toward the crystal. The moment the smoke touches the crystals, they begin to turn black from the inside out, the darkness spreading like ink in water.
Snape makes a sound Harry has never heard him make before. It is something between a sob and a scream, quickly bitten off. Blood runs down his arm where the mark used to be, the skin raw and red as a burn.
The last tendril of smoke disappears into the crystals. The green light winks out.
For a long moment, no one moves. The only sound is Snape's ragged breathing.
Flamel picks up the crystals carefully, holding it up to the light. Inside, the Dark Mark writhes, the skull and snake moving ceaselessly, trapped and furious. "Remarkable," he murmurs, grinning. "In six hundred years, I have never seen anything quite like this."
Harry stares at Snape's arm. The skin is unmarked now, smooth except for the blood and the raw redness that will fade with time. No skull. No snake. Nothing.
"It's gone," Harry says, and his voice comes out strange. It worked. And that means that maybe Harry can have the Horcrux in his scar removed too.
Snape stares down at his arm, turning it over and over again. He takes out his wand. “Expecto Patronum,” he says, and a great doe bursts forward, larger than any other Patronus Harry has ever seen. “Go to Dumbledore and tell him,” Snape commands, eyes bright and triumphant, even as his arm drips blood onto the floor below. “Tell him I am free.”