Chapter Text
1.
Instead of three friends aboard the Hogwarts Express, this year, there are only two. Aurelia Potter's expulsion is plastered all over the news, from her use of magic out of Hogwarts and in a muggle area, breaking the Statute of Secrecy, till Fudge's claims about her 'delicate constitution' (the same claims one particular reporter said Miss Potter herself told Fudge to shove it down your–).
Dumbledore didn't come to the rescue after all.
So, Ron and Hermione are there, in their compartments, both righteously angry and sad, because it's always been the three of them, against teachers and trolls and allegedly deranged convicts, but now one part of them is gone.
Draco Malfoy opens their compartment door and struts in, as usual, before immediately putting on a look of disappointment. "So the papers weren't lying, then? I really thought the great Dumbledore–"
"Oh, fuck off, Malfoy," Ron interrupts tiredly.
"Whatever," Malfoy mutters, before leaving.
That's odd, Hermione thinks. He stays longer to torment them than this. Certainly makes some comment about Ron being poor and a Weasley or Hermione being a know-it-all mudblood and most certainly does not leave upon the first time of being told to.
She shrugs and goes back to reading her book. They can't be bothered to analyse that. Not today.
2.
"I guess I'll have to revisit my old plan again," Aurelia tells Sirius and Remus, when the three of them are sitting on the couch and brooding. It's their very own form of bonding these days.
"What old plan?" Sirius asks. He always asks more when she lets slip a single thing about her life. It's kind of sweet, she'll admit, that he wants to learn about the things she did. If they ignore that heartbreaking aspect that one of the reasons is that he was never there to see her grow or raise her and instead the two of them had to spend all those years in two very different prisons.
"When I was little," Aurelia begins haltingly, "I had this ripped up paper that I got from a notebook and I wrote a list of things I wanted to do with a pencil I stole," talking about the Dursleys is terrible at the worst of times, but with Sirius, it's gotten easier. That is probably because instead of pity, she just gets understanding. Two peas in a pod, they are. "I might have it stored somewhere at the very base corners of my trunk or something. I didn't pay much attention to it once Hogwarts started, because a lot of those things wouldn't matter anymore."
"Do you want to start on the list now?" Remus offers.
Actually, she does.
3.
They end up finding the list pretty quickly, all things considered.
Aurelia looks at the list, then back at Sirius and Remus, thinks about her friends back in Gryffindor Tower right now, and checks off the first thing on the list.
Get a family
"Looks like one thing is already done," she pauses and blinks rapidly. "There's a lot of dust here, isn't there?"
"Yeah," Sirius agrees, voice suspiciously hoarse, "We're going to have to clean it properly later."
Remus sighs.
The three of them sit at the kitchen table and analyse the rest of the list. There's generic stuff like find a good job, leave the Dursleys, and get an apartment.
"Why exactly do you want a walk-in closet, cub?" Remus asks.
Aurelia flips her hair back. "For my dozens of shoes, dresses and expensive jewellery, obviously."
What she doesn't say is that all Petunia ever gave her were Dudley's rags, and that she always felt a guilty for using her parent's money more than necessary (she is rather stingy about money, another thing to thank the Dursleys for), and that little Aurelia had stared longingly at window displays and Mrs. Number 7's glamorous earrings. What she doesn't say is that with Petunia she wasn't allowed to want things, because freaks don't deserve good things, but she did want nice things, and she always told herself she'd get them as soon as she had her own money and was free of the Dursleys.
She thinks between the two of them and their weird eye contact talking they'll figure it out.
"Please tell me "kiss?" never happened," Sirius begs.
Aurelia victoriously crosses it out and says, "Anthony Goldstein was a disappointment I should have never gone near."
"Normally I'd ask for the story, but right now I feel like murdering a teenage boy, so perhaps later," Remus informs.
Suddenly, Sirius has an epiphany.
"My family kept tons of clothes and jewellery in this house!" he remembers, "And they might be insane, bigoted fucks at the best of times, but they had style."
Aurelia's eyes gleam. "Are you implying–"
"Have at it, pup! Whatever you want is yours. I bet my ancestors would hate that all their beautiful, expensive stuff was in the hands of somebody they'd call a 'blood traitor' ."
Remus looks like he regrets whatever unholy answers come out of Aurelia and Sirius becoming closer.
4.
Minerva McGonagall walks into the Order Headquarters to the sight of Aurelia Rose Potter and Sirius Orion Black in the kitchen. Cooking. With no supervision.
"How are you so good at this?" Sirius asks, baffled.
"Aunt Petunia made me cook their meals since I was, what, four? Five, maybe. Anyway, I cook better than she could ever dream of doing," the fifteen-year-old in question proclaims proudly. She seems to find nothing wrong with the fact that someone forced a five-year-old to cook meals.
Minerva wants to commit murder. Just a little.
"Hey, do you think if we added your dad's old firewhiskey to this, no one would notice?"
Sirius considers it.
Remus' voice filters through, from wherever he is currently hiding, "Whatever you two are planning, don't do it!"
Sirius looks back at Aurelia and grins. "I'll get the bottle. Vintage?"
"Good idea."
Minerva turns around and promptly leaves. She'll tell Albus everything is going well – regardless, Aurelia is clearly happier here, the old man can kiss her ass if he thinks otherwise, she won't have the girl go to those people again – and she'd rather not be part of the shitshow another Potter and Black duo have decided to wreak. Remus can handle it.
"Sirius, I think we set the pot on fire!"
"Call an adult!"
"You're an adult!"
Then, in unison, two screams of "MOONY!"
Minerva leaves.
5.
Umbridge is a bitter old toad that everyone hates. Even the Slytherins don't like her, and they're her favourites.
Ron can see how Hogwarts' usual cliques and opinions are shifting simply by her presence and Aurelia's notable absence. Hating the pink toad overrides all house rivalry. Alicia says Angelina cried in the bathroom because Gryffindor didn't have a better seeker than Lia.
Ron misses making up stupid dreams in Divination with someone to bounce off stupid ideas on, misses partnering with Lia's quiet, misses her Arithmancy tutoring and witty commentary during Muggle Studies and– he just misses his best friend. Everything is worse and bleak without her.
Draco fucking Malfoy has stopped going after them, mocking them or trying to sabotage their potions or anything. It's like the past four years of rivalry mean nothing. He even got himself a new rival – Anthony Goldstein from Ravenclaw of all people.
Ron very sagely tells Neville and Hermione that Malfoy's rival standards have lowered significantly if he'd go to that. Hermione looks like there is a puzzle she is trying to piece together.
Neville looks at the two of them like they're stupid and calls them oblivious.
They'll figure it out eventually. They always do. Although, he thinks, a mystery like that would be more fun if Lia was with them.
Bloody Voldemort and Dumbledore and Daily Prophet and Ministry and whatever else decided they should be separated from their best friend.
6.
The thing with living in Number 12, Grimmauld Place, is that eventually you get sick of Walburga Black's portrait and her screeching. The other thing is that she's been living here for a month now and it's getting to her head.
Aurelia gets herself a chair, cracks open a bottle of Cola, and sits in front of Walburga. "I feel like you might want to vent a little."
"I do not speak to some filthy little–"
"I'm pretty sure I'm the current heiress actually."
"Clearly our great house can only fall further than I ever thought–"
"I'm not leaving until you start really talking." And so she doesn't. She just sits there, staring into the painting's soul, and drinking her cola.
("Should we stop this?" Tonks asks.
"Nah," Sirius waves off, "I want to see how this goes.")
Eventually, Walburga breaks.
"It all started before I was even married – against my will, might I add – right around when my mother gave birth to me…"
Sirius did not sit here to listen to his mother's life story, but he will admit it is rather compelling nonetheless. He still hates her, obviously, but he does discreetly take Tonks' offered tissue.
So Pollux and Irma were neglectful at best, the 40s were terrible for women, and also for women who liked women, and that Orion Black was a, terrible in bed, and b, had a long-lasting affair with some Constantina Crabbe. Neither of them wanted to marry each other – which explains the sorry state of their marriage, at least – but their parents were firm.
"I gave up everything that made me happy for the sake of our house's greatness," the portrait sobbed, "The least my sons could do was not be a disgrace to our name!"
"That's a heavy statement I'm not qualified to unpack," Aurelia says delicately, "Perhaps we can move back to your, uh, thing with my grandmother?"
Ah, the one part of the story Sirius was blissfully going to ignore forever. Or he'd like to, if it could be ignored.
"It was not just a thing, as you put it, young lady! Euphemia and I were… rather close. Scandalously so, even. I rather liked kissing her, among, ah, other things," and really, is it too much to ask for his brain to be bleached? "Do you know we shared the Slytherin dorms?"
Dear Merlin. Sirius did not want to find out his abusive hag of a mother had an affair with the woman he'd adopted as his mother during his teenage years and beyond, but you learn something new everyday. He did not want to learn about either of their sex lives, and here he is, learning about both.
"Then what happened?"
"Orion," Walburga hisses with such venom that Sirius kind of wants to take a step back out of fear. "I was always supposed to put the interests of the family first, and so was he – him moreso, as the heir – but I suppose he was always allowed to get away with things, wasn't he?"
"That must suck," Aurelia adds helpfully.
"It did!" Walburga agrees. "Naturally, the Black heir could not be seen cavorting with disgraces like Constantina Crabbe, much less marrying them, but the damage was already done! Nobody wanted him. I don't blame them, honestly. I'd rather wade through mud than touch something ruined by her, but I had no choice, for the sake of the house, as I was constantly reminded."
"So they made you marry him, and said some hippogriff shit about keeping the noble blood pure, while really it was because no one else would agree to be with him and they'd all systematically manipulated you into obedience?"
"Quite right, my dear, quite right."
So Aurelia has progressed from filthy little half-blood to girl to young lady to my dear, in the span of three hours as his mother narrated the story of her life. Meanwhile, Sirius has been ungrateful boy for just about his whole life. His goddaughter works miracles.
"So I guess you and my grandmother were…"
"Forcefully separated? Yes. At least I seek comfort in the fact that she was happy with the Potter boy, at the end of the day. Still, I have always held a sliver of hope she remembered me as something more than youthful folly."
What the fuck. Sirius hates his mother. This is a fact. Sirius loves Effie and Fleamont with his whole heart as the parents he wishes he had. This is also a fact. Sirius is really, really rooting for his mother and Effie Greengrass Potter being a couple. This is slowly becoming a fact, much to his own horror.
"I was told my dad named me Aurelia because my grandmother wanted an Aurelia," his goddaughter tries to comfort his hag mother, bless her.
Said hag smiles. "Mia and I, we used to dream about running away to a different country, perhaps, free of responsibility and familial honour, just the two of us and nothing else." Sirius looks at Remus. Remus looks back at Sirius. They both look away and resolutely avoid any similarities found. "She asked me, once, what I'd name a daughter if I had one. The naming traditions of the Blacks are no doubt lovely, and I would always honour them but–"
"But?" Aurelia prompts.
"I told her the truth. I'd name a girl Aurelia if given the chance."
"Well then, I guess grandma didn't forget you after all, did she?"
His mother smiles slightly. It's a terrible sight to behold, because he forgot she can smile. "I suppose she didn't."
A pause.
"Oh, would that you were my own blood," his mother concludes, somehow, "It seems my son did something right, if you are the heir."
Kingsley trips over the stairs.
7.
Aurelia starts studying. Moony is a great teacher – even History of Magic gets easier, and she makes way fewer errors in Potions. And she has time for her own hobbies.
She was not going to, at first, when she'd presented the men with her own attempt at a schedule. Remus had looked at it and paled. Sirius said that if they made James Potter's princess that rigorous a schedule, the man would return from the dead just to rip into all of them. Remus had a more reasonable explanation, the kind Sirius mimes Lily would say: that it would tire her out too quickly, too soon, and she'd be burnt out in a matter of weeks, none of which was conducive to learning.
That's another nice thing about living with Sirius and Remus – it gives her inklings of what kind of parents she would have had, had things been just a little bit luckier for her. In her first year, she liked knowing that her mother was scary smart and her father was a Quidditch legend, what subjects they excelled in, but after three years, everyone keeps repeating the same thing and there's no substance.
Not these two. They knew her parents, much better than anyone else, and so now she has more information about them in a couple months than she got in fourteen years. She knows dad would have spoiled her and mum constantly, that mum planned to teach her the Evans' special right hook once she turned old enough, that mum liked mangoes and dad liked oranges, things like that.
They've managed to procure her an old wand, one that belonged to some Cassiopeia Black (Sirius paled and muttered several things about a terrifying, insane woman that she can only assume was the previous owner), and fit with her perfectly.
She misses her holly and phoenix wand, true. When the Ministry officials snapped it, something in her broke. That was her wand, her truest sign of being magical, the assurance that she isn't a freak locked in a cupboard under the stairs with no one to save her. And they snapped it in half.
Yet, Ollivander's words rang in her head. You will do great things. A destiny, a twin wand, that was a promise with the holly. A destiny she never wanted. The thing is, at the end of the day, Aurelia Potter does not want to constantly fight for her life during battles that seem to do nothing but hurt her and her loved ones.
She cries to Sirius about it, about how much she feels that way but also hates feeling that way, because Aurelia is supposed to be a hero, isn't she? Brave and chivalrous and whatever else. It's so selfish of her to want out, to let others risk their lives because she's ended up being a coward.
Sirius is quiet for a while, letting her ruin his shirt (he doesn't like this one anyway, he'll tell her later, when Aurelia has heard him inform Remus before that this is his favourite).
"If this is anyone's fault, pup, it's ours." He says finally.
"But–"
"No, no, let me finish this here," he interrupts. "Look, did you actually have a choice to be part of this war? You didn't. The Dark Tosser decided infanticide was the way to go, and your parents protected you, because James and Lily wanted you safe and happy, yeah? They wouldn't want you to fight him."
"They fought."
"Yeah," Sirius agrees, "So did we. And a bunch of other adults who were adults and who entered the shitshow willingly. From what I know, you never did that. For Merlin's sake, you were a kid. Are still a kid. That stuff has an effect on you. So I have an idea: we train you to fight, sure, but not because I want you to face him. Nobody in this house right now wants that. Instead, you learn, and if and only if the madman comes after you, kick his ass."
"Dumbledore–"
"Can go fuck himself," Sirius decides, "The entire Order can too, if they press the issue."
Despite herself, Aurelia giggles.
Sirius stands up abruptly. "Now let's get you a new wand."
So yeah. Cassiopeia Black's wand, which speaks nothing of destiny or greatness or abstract concepts of her future, but just says go fuck shit up, and honestly, Aurelia can respect that.
8.
Christmas arrives.
Aurelia has a dream that saves Mr. Weasley's life and also teaches her just how badly she needs to learn this Occlumency thing. Sirius gets a letter from his cousin that seems very serious indeed. Most importantly, she meets her friends again and gets news from scho– Hogwarts. From Hogwarts.
"And he keeps hexing Goldstein when he thinks no one can see–" Ron is explaining, when Sirius enters with an announcement.
"Narcissa is requesting asylum for herself and her son."
"The ferret?" Aurelia asks incredulously.
Remus raises an eyebrow in her direction. Ah. They haven't been told the ferret story yet, have they? She'll fix that oversight later.
"How do we know they're to be trusted?" Moody grunts. "Malfoy Manor was where You-Know-Who lived in the first war, and I bet he's resumed his stay. Who knows, maybe they kept the guest room ready for their dear lord years beforehand."
"Then we question them with Veritaserum," Sirius says, as if it's that obvious. "I know my cousin. She'd never write to me this desperately unless the situation was serious, and she cares about nothing more than her son."
"Not even her precious dark lord?"
"I'm pretty sure Cissa would look him straight in the face and tell him to go fuck a chainsaw if that was best for her baby boy."
Moody grunts in agreement. "Veritaserum it is."
9.
"SIRIUS!" Aurelia calls as she sprints down the stairs, "I found this diamond set, it's one of the best sets I've seen in my entire life and I need you to uncurse it because nothing is stopping me from getting it but it keeps trying to kill me!"
Oh, she thinks to herself, panting, as she storms into the dining room, this is hardly the best impression to give to my godfather's cousin whose son I despise ardently.
Aurelia draws herself to her full height, which is unfortunately very less but she makes up for it in sheer determination and dignity, and looks at the ferret with a straight face. "Shouldn't you be in Hogwarts tormenting unsuspecting badgers?"
"Shouldn't you be there being the oh-so-great and angelic saviour of unsuspecting badgers?"
"I got expelled," she says flatly, "What's your excuse?"
"If I return now, my housemates will poison my cup."
She wrinkles her nose in disgust. "I'd much prefer stabbing you. More satisfying."
"Yes, I'm sure the stone walls are missing your bloodthirsty presence."
If Aurelia didn't know any better (such as that, oh you know, they hate each other), she might say Draco Malfoy's frame lost a good chunk of tension after their back and forth. As it is, she is trying to figure out why the hell she has to hold back a smile or why their routine insulting somehow makes her feel better.
Sirius looks between the two of them with an expression of mounting horror. Narcissa Malfoy looks conspiring.
"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Potter," the woman smoothly cuts in.
"Likewise, Mrs. Malfoy," and oh, those must be the wonderful sounds of the ferret choking on spit in the background because she has never cared to be polite and charming in his vicinity, ever. In her defense, he doesn't deserve it, but his mother has done nothing so far but be nice while also having to a, be married to Malfoy Senior, b, raise Malfoy Junior, and c, have Voldemort lazing in her living room.
Aurelia kind of admires that she hasn't burned down a building yet.
"I am a rather dab hand with cursed jewellery, if I may?" Mrs. Malfoy offers. There's some sort of scheme going on here, Aurelia's long-buried Slytherin side can sense that much, but she really, really wants that set so her paranoia is going to have to suck it. A discreet thumbs up from Sirius assures that yes, she can go alone with the lady.
Narcissa Malfoy is, in fact, very good and very vicious with cursed objects.
"Could you teach me?" Aurelia blurts out, and she's pretty sure she fell into the woman's trap. Not that it matters. She likes Mrs. Malfoy way too much now.