Trespassing house-elves was not something Aster thought she would have to worry about in her lifetime, in the end, it's just another bullet point to her list of things that didn't need to happen but did anyway.
It was in the after-hours of her 12th birthday celebration and the castle was just beginning to settle down for the night. Aster, Sirius, and Arcturus had been holed up in the latter's study, the former regaling both men tales of her summer escapade. She had never been the chattiest child, but standing there with her hands flailing all over, it seemed she had gained something more from her trip than a good tan.
Aster was a whirlwind, pulling out several carefully wrapped trinkets and souvenirs from her luggage, more than it looked like it could carry. By the end of it, her grandfather's ebony wood shelves were littered with various new knickknacks, leaving the same wooded desk space free.
Arcturus's beard ruffled. "Didn't I limit your spending?"
"You did." Aster nodded unconcernedly. "But there's this wonderful thing called a bargain."
She went on into a rant all about just how backwards the British Wizarding Society was when compared to a country further East, how magic was on a bigger scale and perfectly blended within common spaces without endangering either community's identity. The energy in the soil itself was impenetrable which spoke volumes of its memories.
Most impressive, and almost comical, was the glass tank that had her asking Sirius for help to bring out of her case. Without it being even fully set down, Arcturus could not help but let out a gasp at the sight. "Where on earth..."
From afar it may have looked like an ever-shaken snowglobe stuck in the dark, but if one were to close in on its glass confines, one could notice that some specks formed patterns only to find that they were not specks but stars.
Each star twinkled at random intervals, slowly swirling within the inky blackness with the occasional splatter of colour as if the galaxy was entrapped within—an exact replica of every recognised star and constellation. Aster had found it at the back of an astrologer's shop disguised from the non-magical and thought nothing else to be the perfect gift for her family.
It was probably what made Aster more in love with her travel, she could never have found such a thing so easily within her homeland, not when they were so put off by everything muggle and not finding ways to infuse modern discoveries with their magic. Turkey with its surroundings being as old as they were had no qualms about such things and instead was a hotspot and a teeming hive for brilliant magical minds, where they converged to share their inventions with each side of the world.
Arcturus chuckled in satisfaction after moments of studying the object. "Marvelous." He nodded at her fondly. Sirius was busy swiping on the glass, zooming in and out on certain constellations with wide eyes.
"It's a shame, I could've bought another to cheat Astrology off of but I only had enough for one," Aster sighed dejectedly.
"A Black cheating on Astrology? There's no such thing." Sirius glared lightly.
Aster grinned. "As if I'd ever."
Their banter was interrupted when Arcturus straightened up all of a sudden and rushed out to the hallway, where an army of house-elves stood alert, all seeming to surround a lone elf. Its drooping ears almost reached the ground, already large eyes wide in resolution.
Compared to the more dignified bearing of Black elves draped in understated black Sea Island cotton cloths, this one was dressed in pitiful rags and even worse there were stains that should've been easily taken care of by magic. A servant was an extension of their master, whoever's House this elf was from was less than respectable.
Yet despite being foolishly outnumbered, the elf's eyes burned in resolution, flittering around the hall seemingly in search of something, or someone.
"Explain to me," Arcturus eyed the out-of-place house-elf.
"We caught him blinking in at the kitchens, my lords." The head house-elf bowed at their waist.
"Dobby is Dobby, sires!" The strange house-elf, Dobby, introduced himself. "Dobby has come to warn Miss Potter!"
"So you presume yourself above and step into my house uninvited?" Arcturus glowered. This house-elf dared to ruin his granddaughter's birthday? "Who is your master?"
"Dobby cannot say, sire." Dobby whimpered, shrinking into himself.
Whoever it was really must be pathetic if their linguistic development fell off this short. Or maybe it was just this one who was reckless enough to think they could just step in and out of Black grounds unscathed.
Stepping out from behind her grandfather, Aster spoke up. "I've seen you somewhere. What do you want?"
It may have been a couple of years ago since she last went, but there was only one other place she was familiar with that could host such a house-elf. And such a twitchy temperament indeed leaves an impression.
Dobby's eyes widened even more if that was possible, seeing his arms were still bound, he dropped to the ground and started bashing his head on the marbled floors.
"Restrain him!" Sirius commanded.
It takes a house-elf to best a house-elf. In this case, it took six to grapple and bind him to the floor, one for each limb, one at the head, and another at the waist. Dobby could've left at any point than suffer such but still he stayed and withstood everything. Whatever he had to say now, they would at least take into consideration.
"Don't allude to his master," Aster whispered to the two in quick understanding.
The restrained house-elf had stopped wriggling by then but had broken out into loud sobs, indiscernibly rambling apologies. Aster stepped forward and crouched down by Dobby's head as she smiled genially at him, somehow the action irritated her unconsciously. "It's alright, now."
Somehow it only made him burst into louder tears.
"Oh, miss is too kind! Miss doesn't deserve this! Nooo!" Dobby wept.
If it was any other creature Aster would have already kicked its head in after such behaviour. Lucky for Dobby, he was a bound house-elf whose master she was very much familiar with.
"Shh, shh. You're okay, no one's hurting you here," Aster tried to replicate what she saw the lady matron do whenever a kid got hurt. Whatever to get this thing to shut up.
As if he wasn't just a worm wriggling on the floor, Dobby sprang back up clumsily, firmly grasping at his cloths. "Yes, yes," he sniffed. "No one gets hurt here. Miss is safer here! Aster Potter must not come back to Hogwarts."
"Says who?" Arcturus inquired from behind her.
"Why not?" Aster tried to restrain from shrieking. "I need to be there!"
"No, no, no," squeaked Dobby, tugging at his ears painfully, shaking his head. "Aster Potter must stay where she is safe. She is too great, too good, to lose. If Aster Potter goes back to Hogwarts, she will be in mortal danger."
There were many scenarios as to why Dobby even came to warn her, a tangled chaos of commands, obedience, loopholes, and disobedience that were part of a house-elf's own person.
Her shoulders stiffened and her eyes steeled. Demented, bug-eyed, bat he may seem but Aster wouldn't be where she was if she dismissed even a simple warning. She knew her life was always on the line when it came near to that school, but maybe taking such risks was one of the few things she inherited from her parents.
Which was why she was willing to hear Dobby out even if she was going anyway.
"Explain," she spat out.
"There is a plot, Aster Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year," whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over. "Dobby has known it for months, miss. Aster Potter must not put herself in peril. She is too important, miss!"
Her brain ran over possibilities. Dobby didn't act the least bit properly socialised so he probably barely left Malfoy Manor. So it was someone he'd run into within it or at least was mentioned by them in passing. She'd seen Narcissa interact with their house-elves and she wasn't as crude towards them to end up like this one in front of her.
Lucius Malfoy, however, or one of his close associates... Still, it would not do to jump straight to conclusions, but at least she knew whoever is behind it was connected to him in some way. Dobby's arrival was a lead in itself so maybe he actually did accomplish something.
And Draco? As if that high-nosed ferret would work with a servant to pull off this elaborate a prank.
All while Aster was thinking quietly, both Sirius and Arcturus were dumbfounded and curious as to how she knew this house-elf, but more importantly both were furious over the threat it delivered right inside their own home.
Halting her mental theories, Aster gave Dobby a smile one would make when going along with a small child. "I'm grateful for your warning, Dobby. You're a very good elf." Her hand reached out and gave his greasy, wrinkly head a few pats.
Dobby moved quickly, thinking he was about to hurt himself again their own house-elves rushed forward to restrain him again, but there was no need as the elf simply attached himself to Aster's legs in an embrace, the top of his head barely reaching above her waist. His words were muffled with his head buried in the side of her dress but it was probably the same drivel of her greatness. She fought off physically flinging him.
Instead, she firmly grasp his shoulders and held him at arm's length. More words of reassurance that were really getting annoying now, she hinted at his lengthy disappearance and that his masters might be looking for him, mistaken for concern, one last look of glittering adoration, and with a whip-like crack, Dobby was finally gone.
The hallway was quiet at last, the army of house-elves blinked owlishly at each other after the spectacle.
"Good work, everyone. Back to your duties," Arcturus declared.
Aster flicked a finger at her soaked dress, bringing it back to its natural state, she skipped back to the study knowing the other two would follow suit. The grandfather and grandson walked back more leisurely than one would expect after hearing such a message
"You can't actually be thinking of letting her go, are you?" Sirius scoffed.
Arcturus grumbled, "If you actually paid her the right attention you'd understand even if I tried to stop her it would be in vain. You were worse at her age, you would have been jumping for joy."
Sirius took it in quietly, stuffing his hands into his pockets. It unsettled him knowing his grandfather was right. It's been years. He should have settled in by now, but everything was all too different in a familiar place.
They found Aster sitting on the desk fixing the new displays to how she knows her grandfather would like.
"I just scried with your glass, by the way, thanks for that. The water says school letters are arriving next weekend and I was hoping to go school shopping with Daphne and the boys that same day?"
Arcturus turned his head, giving her a knowing look. She shrugged with an impish smile. The old man walked toward his dark leather desk chair and sat down with a heavy grunt. He gave Aster a wan smile.
"I know what you are capable of, but forgive me who can't help but worry." Arcturus held her hand in between his and focused on them, still as small in his mind as when he first saw her. "You've only just turned twelve." He grinned wryly.
Sirius watched it all leaning on the doorway. It was hard to think for him that this was the same man that raised his father and to compare it to how his father handled his own family. He tried not to think of what could have been if his own father was like that. He tried not to think of what went wrong in the middle.
And here where he was supposed to be the father, to care for his own child, he failed like his father had with him. Maybe he was the problem? He was trying, wasn't he? He tried to swallow it all down only to find his throat dry and his eyes wet.
He won't back down. He won't stay back and just watch. He was not his father.
"How are you so accepting of this?" Sirius demanded, finally stepping into the study. "I'm still her father by blood and I won't allow it, I can't!"
Nobody flinched despite the sudden rise of his voice. His breath quickened at the thought of letting James' daughter, his daughter, walk into avoidable danger. He didn't know when he became so cautious, feeling prickly even at the notion of walking straight onto a battlefield. He'd been through war for Merlin's sake, and Aster wasn't a soldier, she was a child!
So why did her gaze feel like being stared down by a general?
Sirius knew the feeling of being hunted, the shivers on your neck, phantom hands crushing your shoulders to drag you down at any chance. Yet nothing felt quite as damning as being looked at like a stranger by the one good thing left in your life. Sometimes he looks at her and can't help but feel like he saw a ghost. He looks at her face and he forgets all that he lost and all he can think of was laughter and the sweetness of chocolates. Then she blinks and everything comes crashing down. He never blamed her for it.
He was her father as much as James was but he wasn't doing any better than the dead man. He didn't remember the last time he treated her like a daughter and not his old best friend and now here he was finally treating her like a child. Was it when she first saw her again? She was so much tinier back then, like a porcelain doll atop that velvet chair.
He felt stupid now thinking he had some grand revelation back then. It's been years of seeing a healer on and off to shake off being released from Azkaban when in the end he needed to heal from something else. Maybe deep down he knew he was avoiding it. He'd be a terrible runaway. It was only now that sunk into him that no matter how he looks through foggy mirrors, what it reflects will never change.
Barely a few sentences and a single look was all it took to make him rethink all his actions. As if knowing everything that raced through his head, Aster morphed to give him a glittering smile.
"Come on, trust me. Plus, after everything in First Year, I think the warning was actually an improvement."
"After what?" Both men's voices raised this time.
Aster slowly retreated her hands from Arcturus' hold, her laughter dying down. "I may have forgotten to mention it in my letters?"
"Young lady—" Arcturus grunted as he dragged his hands down his face.
"Everything happened so fast, okay?" Aster exclaimed. "It was right after exams, too! Not even a bit of consideration for a, uhh... Oh, wow, on second thought, that is absolutely diabolical."
If you were planning to kill someone you could've at least spared them from the exams and do it before rather than after. Like Aster said, diabolical.
"Aster." Her grandfather's voice lowered.
There were very few things Arcturus had to worry about with Aster. He knew there weren't many things that could endanger her because most of the time it was her. But if there actually was something that put her on the line and it happened without her telling him, he was having second thoughts now.
On these grounds, he knew she was safe. He was already shaken by failing to prevent the entrance of that wonky elf. Then he finds out somebody almost laid a hand on her in that school.
Aster decided it was time to intervene before either men's thoughts spiralled for the worst.
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" She jumped down from the desk. "I can take care of myself."
It was imperative she make it to the scene when someone steps forward to put her down. To her it was like an invitation, to assess the other. And no place better to gather evidence of their prowess than the stage set for the crime. Given how things progressed the year before, she'll have enough time.
Sirius and Arcturus stared at her unimpressed, making her roll her eyes and rush towards her luggage and rummage around. She thanked the stars she never got around to cleaning it out when summer started
"I have proof! Never thought they'd be useful this way, actually." She muttered the last bit. Pulling out her messenger bag from a compartment, it was a quick manipulation of hidden strings before she held an inconspicuous jar full of grey powder.
Both men looked unimpressed with her presentation and Aster had to hold back her own frustration. "It's human ashes!"
Sirius opened and closed his mouth like a fish before settling on pointing at the object accusingly.
"Who sold you that?"
It was Aster's turn to look offended. "I got them myself, thank you very much!"
"But who? When?" Arcturus raised.
"Do you two remember that one professor that went missing at the end of the year?"
"You did not," Sirius groaned.
"I did, yes."
"Couldn't we have just replaced him like that other professor?"
"First of all, Binns was a ghost. Second, it was more of an eviction."
Sirius raised his hands, retreating, before he raised another question. "How does that thing help your case again?"
Aster set the jar on the desk and beckoned him over. "You've probably come across him once or twice before, and I'm definitely sure you'll recognize him." She patted the lid twice. "Go on, give it a scan."
His eyebrows scrunched in focus and reached out his hand before retracting it in shock and then disgust not long after.
"I thought this was Quirrell?"
"It was."
"Then how?" His face soon morphed into horror. "No."
Any leftover materials involved in rituals left uncleansed that required so much give and take preserve a substantial amount of residue of the energy it took to perform. In Aster's eyes, apart from the powdery substance, an oily ink surrounded it. For her to see it in such intensity, it'd be easy enough for the Black's calibre to sense if they focused on it.
"Somehow, they shared a body," Arcturus spoke up from his chair. "And not just regular possession, Quirrell offered his body as a vessel. If the body lasted any longer, that pillock would've taken over." He let out a slow chuckle. "Look at him now, just another parasite."
He turned it over in his head, the length of development would've been at least a year when the attachment began if everything took place before the professor had to report back. And for Aster still managing to come out victorious after such a timer had passed, she had more than exceeded his expectations.
"If it is him, with what I know, I'll be able to handle it."
"Exactly how do you plan on doing that?"
"You're a Gryffindor, have a little faith. That's what you all do, right? Leaping and all."
Sirius didn't see it the same way. "That is exactly what I mean by you not going back there! Voldemort was right under his nose and he did nothing, what could I have done before it would've been too late? What if—"
"Stop projecting your own incompetency on me over your own failure over ten years ago! I can save myself!" Aster fumed.
"We have no idea how you even survived that night, don't even think that just because you got lucky a second time that this time again will be the same!"
"Lucky?" She choked over herself. "You think I made i—"
"Sirius, that's enough," Arcturus ordered.
Sirius made a move to speak again but Arcturus shook his head. The small pause was all it took for him to take a deep breath and finally stepped back.
"I'm going and that is final." Aster glared at Sirius.
She bid them a final goodnight, summoning her items to her room before sharply turning on her heels and heading there herself.
The chirping of crickets in the trees outside highlighted the hour of night, the barely there curve of the moon gave way to a blanket of stars that twinkled and filled the silence of the room.
Sirius stared down at Arcturs, breathing heavily still.
He tried to speak again in retaliation but couldn't find the words through his whirlwind of emotions.
Arcturus gave him some time until he returned to his own business and cleaned up his desk, wistfully eyeing the gifts Aster brought back as if he wasn't even in the room.
"Give her time, along with yourself. The day must've tired both of you so go get some rest and you can talk about it next morning when emotions aren't as volatile." His grandfather didn't back down either, he never did when it came to him.
"They plan to buy their new school things next week, you have that much time to convince her. Or beg her at the platform, I'd like to see you try," Arcturus snickered.
Sirius couldn't understand how he was still so calm about everything. What gave him the impression the threat wasn't all that dangerous? He thought about asking him straightforwardly, but he somehow already knew he'd hold whatever he knew about Aster above Sirius and couldn't even fault him for it.
He wasn't as blind as he was in the past, he knew they were holding something from him. He just didn't see the point of it when everything else he knew was left behind and now when they were all he had left, there was an invisible wall that separated them.
He was willing to try, for anything. To convince, to understand, anything at all to hold something close to his chest once again.
Sirius didn't know how long he stood in that study but Arcturus was still there waiting for him as well. The same look of sheer determination as the elf before enveloped his eyes.
"I'm doing this for her. I know I haven't been the most attentive father as far as she can remember, but I'll be the best whatever she wants me to be for her. You know Aster better than I do, so whatever it is you two have an understanding on better be for her own good. That's all I ask." His voice cracked at the end.
His feet finally managed to move, surprising after how still they were for so long, and he started to walk out of the room. With one foot barely stepping onto the hallway he was stopped by a voice.
"That child has been fighting for her life since the moment she got that scar. Every breath she takes is a stab at anyone who wants to take her down, it's more than just what gives her life. She's a fighter more than you think, it's her nature more than it's in her blood."
Sirius looked back over his shoulder.
"And another thing." Arcturus leaned back on his chair. "She's sharper than you even now at her age."
lilie speaks!
*jazz hands* surprize shawty