Chapter Text

Chapter 41: Controlling the Narrative

Lily sat on the couch bouncing Harry on her lap. It was faster that Sirius would’ve done himself, Harry jostling to and fro, but who was he to say the right or wrong way? Lily was the kid’s mother. It was just… usually Harry went to him when they were over; Harry always went to them. James and Lily had all the time in the world with him, Sirius just wanted his time with his godson.

Merlin – that made it sound like Harry was some toy to be shared; the thought sounded as stupid as Sirius had felt standing in the front hall with his arms stretched out expectantly. Lily hadn’t even given him a second glance, marching into the living room of Godric’s Hollow, the baby on her hip.

Enough of that, he thought to himself, physically shaking it off. But still his eyes kept wandering back to the shaggy-haired baby whose scrunched up face took in the room like the victim of a muggle roller coaster.

Isabella sat silently to Sirius’ left, staring at the window over the Potter’s shoulder. Her eyes were unfocused, failing to track the movements of the garden in a way that made it seem as though they’d been stopped by the faint reflection of the room around her, though nothing there seemed to engage her either. Her eyes were as expressive as her face; a dull nothing.

The weeks since the cave were etched in her expression.

It had taken over three weeks for the Potters to finally feel amicable enough to host them. And by that point, Isabella had no interest in the groveling session she was sure they expected it to be. She was tired, they both were. But where Sirius could see that a breakdown of their support system only exacerbated that feeling insufferable exhaustion, she’d come to believe that it was the very system that exhausted her. This cold shoulder from Lily – from Lily and James – she felt was a telling reflection of how the Potters viewed them.

His grandfather had done a number on her, he really had. Had it not been for the trial, Sirius didn’t think his words would’ve resonated the way they had. It wasn’t as though Isabella took them at face value, but it gave her another vantage point from which to analyze everything around her, one which left her bitter and more cynical. And cold. As though they needed any help with that.

Within the last week, Isabella declared that the Potters were now the ones that owed them an apology and that she had nothing, nothing at all to say to them beyond ‘you’re welcome.’

Sirius had been lucky to even get her there. But there she sat, neutrally enough, given the rhetoric Sirius had heard over the last few weeks.

“Now, remind me, was that before or after your grandfather kidnapped your wife?” James responded to Sirius’ last comment. He leaned forward in his seat, biting his thumb nail, and furrowing his brow.

“Please, he didn’t kidnap her,” Sirius defended, “He just…”

“Didn’t let her leave?” Lily filled in the gaps.

“As the ‘kidnapped’ in this discussion,” her words sharp, though expression unchanged, “I felt he showed great reservation. Imagine processing what he’d just seen; he knows – with no further explanation – that his grandson and his -”

“Grand-sons,” Lily interrupted Isabella pointedly.

“Right… the three of us had barely escaped an Inferi-infested cave, using Fiendfyre, and just before he’s shut out, his granddaughter-in-law demonstrates that she is, in fact, a Parselmouth. This occurs whilst all parties are sitting in amongst the entire Wizengamot, during a war in which the enemy leader is believed to be the only Parselmouth outside of Azkaban. And he – the Arcturus Black – found it in himself to let me go rest for over 24 hours before he could get an explanation to any of that. Again, as the kidnapped, I find that very reasonable.”

Sirius vehemently nodded at his wife’s explanation.

“How very Black of you, Isabella, of both of you.” James bared his teeth in an expression that could hardly be classified in the same league as a smile, though seemed it had been its intention. “Now Sirius I believe I interrupted you; you were explaining how your Death – ahem – dear brother Regulus suffered greatly in that cave; while of course not being the one who destroyed the horcrux, nor the one who drank the potion to reach the locket. And please, Isabella, feel no need to remind me that the potion was actually irrelevant and that you could have simply burned it away. Rest assured that – along with your face plastered across every newspaper – will be keeping me up for weeks to come.”

“It was reflexes, it wasn’t his fault,” said Sirius. “And we have no way of knowing if the falling water bottle would’ve triggered the Inferi anyhow. I was only trying to say that had the medics not arrived when they did, he would no longer have an arm. And that would’ve been far harder to explain to the Death Eaters, given that it’s obviously no one buys Isabella’s motorbike story. We should all feel fortunate that’s not the case.”

“We? WE?” Lily shouted, covering little Harry’s ears so as not to alarm him. “Are you suggesting that you’ve let a Death Eater know that you’re working with us? Does he know about Harry?!”

Sirius shook his head, slowly at first and then more confidently as his thoughts caught up with him.

“No,” he said. “I don’t – I don’t think- I mean, look, he obviously knows we’re close. He was the year below us in school and James was the Best Man at our wedding. But in terms of working with you both on this, I don’t think so.”

“Honestly, we’ve kept him at arms-length,” Isabella said coolly. “We have treated him as though he is a Death Eater first, and an asset second.”

“Family third and I’m certain he resents us for it…”

“And serves him right, that fucking bastard,” James said crudely.

“Watch it!” Sirius snapped back, unsure why James’ words bothered him so much. “I know what he’s done and it’s taken me well over a year to even begin to forgive him, so I can’t expect you both to, especially this quickly. I don’t know that he’ll ever forgive himself either. But he’s still my brother. He has done everything in his power to make up for the choices he’s made. We wouldn’t even know about horcruxes had it not been for him.”

“Please, spare me the sermon.” James rolled his eyes. “If you ever thought this was something we were going to accept, why did you keep this from us for so long?!”

“Frankly, James, because it wasn’t about you! I would rather Reg be dead at the hands of the Order, than spared, alive, but in the hands of the Death Eaters as a known traitor. Had the knowledge of his actions caused either of you to hesitate, even for a moment, it would’ve been enough to condemn him to a fate far worse than death.”

James and Lily just stared at them for a moment. They clearly understood what Sirius was saying, and recognized the legitimacy of the argument, but weren’t quite ready to concede.

“It’s been eight months since we were on the front lines, why not tell us during that time?”

“I want to say it was because we didn’t know if you’d be back, but the truth is simply there were always more pressing things. Eventually, I think, we just forgot. But that was a mistake, and I’m genuinely sorry.”

“Do you feel his perspectives have changed? You mentioned he came to you because of what happened to your old house elf…”

“Kreacher.”

“Yes, Kreacher. But do you feel like Regulus has genuinely evolved? That he doesn’t just regret being a Death Eater, but that he no longer thinks like a Death Eater.”

“I have to be transparent with you, I don’t know. I don’t make it a point to talk politics with my family. It depresses me.”

“Well maybe that’s something you ought to figure out if you expect us to work together.”

“We don’t really expect you all will work together,” Isabella interjected. “And let’s be clear, if I thought you both could be convinced that easily, that Regulus was on our side, I would’ve come straight here from the cave and my face wouldn’t be spread across every bloody newspaper.”

“That better not be you blaming us for this,” Lily challenged, “but… we need to talk about these articles – have you read them all?”

Isabella sighed, glancing at the at the sea of different newspapers on the table.

“We know something’s happening with the Prophet,” she said, not looking up from the table, “the tone’s changed, the angle’s clear, and no mention of magical exhaustion from the Dark Arts since the first article. But I mean, who even reads all of these? So, no, I haven’t read them.”

“That’s what we were worried about,” Lily replied, exchanging glances with James who took over the conversation.

“We noticed it with the Prophet first too, but look, it’s all of them. Every single newspaper’s covering this story the exact same way.”

“What? No…” Isabella lowered her voice and dropped to her knees, pushing around the newspapers on the table so they were in chronological order.

“So this isn’t the Carrows and the Prophet taking an angle, this is…” Sirius words trailed off as stood behind his wife.

“I think someone, with a great deal of influence, seems to care quite a lot about how these events are being talked about, period,” James explained. “They may care about Isabella, specifically, but I can’t tell. It’s not exactly all been flattering.”

“Define flattering?” Sirius probed.

“It’s made Isabella sound intimidatingly powerful and manipulative,” Lily said.

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed, glancing down at his wife who could not have been less engaged in the conversation. “My grandfather had similar takeaway after the first article. And he viewed it as a positive.”

“Do you think there's a chance he’s influencing the papers?” James asked.

Sirius shook his head. “No, he’s not. That’s not his style.”

“Could the papers just be wary about how they talk about your family in general?” Lily was grasping at straws but anything was better than the conclusion otherwise. “Or the Darker families? You know they have a peculiar way of not naming Death Eaters any longer.”

“But that shift happened over years – this happened in days.” Sirius collapsed back into his seat. “And that wasn’t without strings being pulled either.”

“I know. Shit.” Unfiltered disappointment spilled into James’ words.

“But then why? To take the time to manipulate papers who might have – what – 10 readers a week? This has to be an initiative then, right? They’re putting serious resources into this. We figured it was some warped favor or someone with a vested interest in how the Dark Arts are being talked about in the paper. But this… goes way beyond that. Why?”

“Would your brother know?”

“No, he doesn’t know shit. He’s at the bottom of the ranks and the papers are beyond his sphere of influence; they wouldn’t loop him in.” Sirius shook off the question.

“So you’re saying you think this goes beyond what they would do to recruit you?” Lily asked. “Beyond controlling the narrative around the Dark Arts?”

Sirius struggled to find the right wording, “I don’t think they know what they’re doing…”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t know what we did to get in the papers. They know it was Dark, they know it was likely powerful. But they don’t want anyone else talking about it until they do.”

“So they’re working with the reporters to investigate?”

“Or they’re just stopping the investigations entirely. There’s something about this that’s clearly concerning them. I just don’t know if we’ve given them reason to worry.”

“You’ve given them COUNTLESS reasons to worry! What you did with Azkaban alone could’ve, should’ve, blown up on you…”

Lily continued on, but after weeks of playing the scenarios out in his head, he was sick of the whole thing; the arguments blurred with the next. He got her point. He just wasn’t sure it was accurate. He had certainly given the Order more and more cause for concern, but the Death Eaters? It seemed to him that all of their actions looked as though they were moving towards their goal, not away from it.

But what good would arguing that end do, really?

He would of course concede that there was something about this ordeal that interested the Death Eaters, that much was clear enough. A part of him had theorized that it was a communication breakdown within their organization. Regulus’ role seemed awfully crucial. Whatever happened was clearly Dark and almost certainly illegal, and if a loyal Death Eater was there along with two of their top recruit targets, would it not seem as though someone up the chain had orchestrated it? Could it not trigger the communications arm of the Death Eaters to cover those tracks even though they didn’t have insight into what had transpired?

Of course, that theory really only worked if one assumed the Death Eaters learned of the incident from Rita Skeeter’s initial article; but they hadn’t. Abraxas Malfoy, Charlus Avery and Oliver Nott had all been summoned to the Wizengamot for the trial. And unless they’d taken a rather blasé attitude towards the whole thing, that sort of curiosity would’ve started then and there.

Regulus’s role or influence was subject at best. The way he’d portrayed the story was simply that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time; his injuries hardly noticeable by the time he was confronted about it. That narrative, in and of itself, undermined any cover-up that this was in some way, shape, or form a Death Eater mission.

Now, James and Lily’s observations about the scope of the coverage manipulation chipped away at that original theory further; this wasn’t some low-ranked Death Eater playing a guessing game, there was some real thought and power was behind this. The most important question then became why? Why stop the investigations and control the narrative in the papers? Was it to do them a favor? To get them to notice? To investigate it themselves outside of the public eye? That last one was the one to worry about, but it came back to whether or not they’d given them cause to investigate their actions; cause for concern.

Because again, in what world would a Dark spell backfiring logically connect back to the resistance?

“Fair. Fine,” Sirius said dismissively, unsure if she’d even finished her point. “Then what’s next? Cup or crown?”

“You’re n- are you not- no,” Lily faulted, giving her husband an exasperated look.

“You need to stop. All of this. For a good while.” Fear met force in James’ voice and the outcome was commanding. “Genuinely. I know it’s not what either of you want to hear. But do nothing for a while. I mean, really nothing. Lay low and try to build back up your reputation.”

Isabella was still on the floor, frantically shuffling through newspaper after newspaper looking like the weight of the world had fallen on her shoulders. Sirius wasn’t even sure she’d registered the conversation around her, nor was he certain she’d have remained so quiet if she had.

“Can we afford to do nothing?” Sirius leaned forward in the armchair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “What’s the point of fighting a war right now if the opposition is immortal? What’re you gaining when you stop the only thing that matters?”

“It’s not the only thing that matters,” James fought back, “and I don’t think you have a choice. Think of it like this; there’s been long quidditch game happening around you and everyone thought you were spectators. Until all of the sudden, the snitch is released and you’ve taken off flying towards it. But no one, not the spectators, nor the players, know which side you’re on. So what are they going to do? They’re going to watch your every move, turn, see who you communicate with and when, to try and see if you’re on the opposing team. And once they’ve reached that conclusion, whether accurately or not, the bludgers will start flying. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Suuure… what’s the snitch in your analogy?”

“The trial, or the art- no. You know what? It doesn’t matter! My point is that you have lost the buffer of neutrality, and any action your take from here on out will not be given the benefit of the doubt. You can’t risk getting caught wandering around Hogwarts in search of the Room of Requirement and the lost diadem. And frankly, we can hardly ask about Hogwarts with you all over the news.”

“And it’s the same on the opposite side,” Lily came back, “you both can’t start prying into the contents of the top Death Eater’s Gringott’s vaults while your names are plastered all over the news for doing something unknown. Our side has questions about your actions that they’re fairly certain the Death Eaters have answers to. So if the Death Eaters are asking the same questions, and they know they don’t have answers to them, what’s their logical conclusion?”

“So,” Sirius worked to keep his voice neutral, “you’re saying we’re stuck.”

“Not stuck, just on hiatus for a while.”

“No – I’m sorry, but no.” He shook his head. “Sure, there are reasons to be concerned, to not act irrationally, but shouldn’t all of this be a catalyst for action? I mean, come on, they’ve been paying attention to us for years, that’s not really anything new, it’s just… more public now.”

“Sirius, you know that’s not what this is. It’s not just ‘more public’ it’s ‘everyone in wizarding Britain knows your wife did something that landed her a hasty trial in front of the Wizengamot’ – let’s not downplay that!”

“Yeah, but I mean – she got away with it! It was worth it, in the grand scheme of things.”

“Oh good Merlin, are you insane?!” James was practically shouting. “Maybe you’ve gotten away with too much and forgotten what reasonable looks like; the Malfoy’s, Little Hangleton, necromancy, the Chamber of Secrets – hell, mailing a Death Eater requesting to meet with You-Know-Who’s freaking relative and then doing it! But you need to understand, you DID NOT get away with this! You may have destroyed the horcrux and you may have escaped with your life, but you did not get away with it when it’s plastered on the front cover of every newspaper and being actively investigated by the Death Eaters!”

“It’s not specifically -”

“No. James is right – don’t mistake your luck for achievement or success or whatever you’re deluding yourself into believing. You are lucky you are alive right now. And you are so very lucky that the Death Eaters don’t know exactly what you’ve done. But Lord-knows you’ve laid out the evidence publicly enough for them to put it together. And if they do…” Lily just shook her head, unwilling to put into words what hung over all of them like a black cloud.

Even Isabella looked up from her papers to absorb the Potter’s blunt assessment of their reality.

“I don’t know how you got so lucky with the Morfin Gaunt situation the first time,” James added. “But I don’t think they’ll miss how significant that is a second time around. Whatever you do, don’t give them a reason to dig those files back up. Don’t push your luck.”

The Morfin Gaunt situation, and the Chamber of Secrets ordeal more broadly, was something they didn’t talk about. After everything, it still remained a sore subject. But it was also true that, as immeasurably frustrating as it was to think about, it had probably deserved more thought than they’d allotted in the aftermath. It was, after all, one of the very few pieces of hard evidence out there. And Morfin Gaunt was the Dark Lord’s uncle.

But, as strange and winding as it could be to follow the evidence they’d laid out, in the end, if someone could possibly reach the conclusion that they had in fact gone to Morfin Gaunt deliberately to learn Parseltongue, and somehow reached the conclusion they intended to or had opened the Chamber of Secrets – a path that even Sirius’ grandfather hadn’t reached on his own – that still led nowhere. The Chamber of Secrets had nothing to do with the horcrux search.

And therein lied the paradox; seeking out Morfin Gaunt, inexplicably, was far more damning than the actual reason they’d sought him out.

Fuck.

Sirius’ stomached dropped.

The Gaunt Shack.

The thought had never occurred to him before – to connect the first horcrux they found to the failures of locating the second. Too many months had separated the Gaunt shack from their trip to Azkaban that he hadn’t thought about the fact that Morfin Gaunt had nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets, but of course everything to do with his old home. The investigation of why they’d met with Morfin Gaunt wouldn’t start with parseltongue, it would start with his old property. And though the wards were intact, there was no replica left behind.

His mind raced through a series of options, each worse than the next. Create a replica, and despite the eyes on them, go back to Little Hangleton a second time, go through the Criminal’s Loop a second time, and hide it – a task that would delay the Dark Lord for a good 30 seconds?

He needed to say something. He’d been silently staring at James now for too long. James, who was right, though Sirius hardly wanted to reward him with such a swift change of tone. But he was right; they could not have the Death Eaters look closer into the Morfin Gaunt situation. They were unequivocally stuck.

Sirius supposed they could make it clear that they had opened the Chamber of Secrets? Formalized that connection to parseltongue. Unleash the basilisk, if they could figure out the wording, or just kill a few muggle-borns—

Oh good MERLIN, he cut his own thought train off, say anything other than that!

“So I get to be bored and useless now?” Sirius directed at no one in particularly as he leaned back in his chair with a forced sigh.

“You’re talking to the wrong people with that one, mate.” James rolled his eyes. “It’s not the end of the world. Merlin, you’re Sirius Black – you and Isabella have enough social obligations to fill a calendar.”

“And you’re both busy outside of that,” Lily continued; though her words suggested nothing cruel, they were unmistakably patronizing, “You have the work with your grandfather and your… studies.”

“Why the attitude, Lily?” Isabella spoke up for the first time since she’d begun reading all of the articles about her. Her tone was frosty and harsh, and she unconsciously crumpled the edges of the newspaper in her hands as she glared up at the Potters. “What do you mean by that?”

“What do you want me to say? It seems to me you have a death-grip on all the evidence that you need to show you’ve been a rather prolific student of the arts outside of the classroom.”

“Are you FUCKING WITH ME?” Isabella slammed the paper down with such force it sent half the stack flying off the table.

“Isabella, this isn’t some affront against you – I’m just saying, don’t blame the articles for the magic you chose to exploit! Now that it’s not just me saying that you’re doing something wrong, fundamentally wrong, can’t you finally take it seriously?”

“Lily, I’m not doing anything wrong! Are you actually letting what you read in these bullshit articles influence what you think about us?! Aren’t you supposed to know us better than anyone else in the world?”

“Then why am I not allowed to be concerned? You read the articles; the things they speculate you’ve done aren’t half as – as Dark as the things I know you’ve done. And look how they’re still talking about it! I’m allowed to worry about you and I should be allowed to say it!”

“They are TOOLS, Lily. And we are allowed to take risks, JUST like you are. I know my choices don’t look like yours, but that doesn’t make it any less legitimate.”

Sirius knew where his wife was going and couldn’t help but wonder how productive or… unproductive the ensuing fight would be. There was a certain purposelessness to it, he felt, or maybe that was the cynic in him talking. After all, there was a reason he had always let Isabella navigate the political conversations when they inevitably occurred.

“I think there are laws that beg to differ,” Lily scoffed.

“Laws? What laws are you drawing the line at? You only think your side and the shit you all do is legitimate because you’re on the same fucking side as the ministry and the aurors.”

Of course, he didn’t have to be just an ideal observer.

“You know? I think that’s accurate! And, you know, they’re a good deal less prejudice!”

“Oh I don’t think that’s true at all!” Isabella snapped. “I am not Death Eater. But am from a Dark family. And I can tell you, I believe with some degree of indisputable evidence, that I am not a part of the population they intend to protect. And the way I have been treated—"

“You’ve also been committing crimes, let’s not brush past that.”

“So have you! The Order is just as sanctioned as the Death Eaters! Only the Order’s fucking colluding with the DMLE—”

“Isabella, what?”

“Don’t you think it’s fucking weird how few of the Sacred families are aurors?! Or professors? Don’t you think it’s fucking WEIRD how as the muggle-born population replaces the pureblood population by percentage, the laws have consistently shifted to the detriment of the majority of the original population?”

If she said something he disagreed with this, maybe he’d be more inclined to intervene.

“Original population? Careful now. So people are advocating for policies they agree with and that meet the demands of an evolving society. That’s not nefarious, Isabella, that’s politics. Laws shift. You don’t mean to tell me that you think the purebloods lack political power, do you?”

“I think we’ve seen that power diminished considerably. We’ve seen structural shifts, not just in the Wizengamot, but in Hogwarts and the Ministry more broadly, particularly across the law enforcement. It’s not enough to have a few seats in the Wizengamot, not when the DMLE holds so much power—”

“Losing power is, again, not synonymous with being stripped of power.”

“They’ve created a self-perpetuating cycle that systematically strips power and rights away from the darker families. We need ministry presence—"

“Oh the Death Eaters are certainly working to get you that ministry presence.”

“You know?” Isabella mocked. “I think that’s accurate!”

“God, Isabella, they are violent murderers! They’re spreading their terror across the UK! How can you possibly justify that?”

“Do you really not see why holding down a population may lead to violence? Why they may feel the need to resort to extreme measures?”

“You cannot be trying to justify their actions. I just don’t believe you’re going there. You’re – what - claiming that the purebloods or the Dark families are some oppressed group?”

“Separate the claim from the group. I’m claiming that the Dark Arts are misunderstood. And in turn the Dark families are misunderstood. And the newer population doesn’t believe that we have the right to even exist—”

“The Dark families don’t believe that MUGGLE-BORNS or for fuck’s sake, even LIGHT families have the right to exist!”

“Maybe if they showed any recognition for the rights of a population and culture that existed here before them—”

“Oh come OFF IT! Do you realize how callous you’re sounding?”

“Thank you for that, Lily, truly nuanced. The truth is, you are raised to hate us just as much as we’re raised to hate you! Only YOU don’t see it because it’s institutionalized! It’s the side of the ministry! It’s the side of aurors! And the laws have been bent in your favor.”

James and Lily both looked stunned and Sirius could hardly blame them. He'd always felt that, given time with most people, Isabella could work them into a corner. Usually this was done in waves, through incremental thought experiments that laid the building blocks for larger challenges, rather than, as she had just done, shoving the harshest version of her argument down their throats.

But to attempt to reframe her argument risked diluting it, and there was truth to Isabella's words that was seldom said, but nevertheless vital to the conflict. And Sirius had no interest in softening it.

“Jesus Christ." Lily's tone shifted in a way that seemed to Sirius disingenuous. "I don’t even know what to say to you right now!”

“Have you never thought about it from a legal perspective? Or do you just not believe me?”

Lily scoffed.

“Where’s your copy of the Declaration of the Rights of Wizards? Or, Statutes of Confederation? Or I suppose we should add in the Addendums as well. Where? Hmm?”

“You know I don’t have any of those on hand.”

“Then I’ll grab ours.” Isabella’s emotionless statement cut through the air in sharp contrast to the passion she had been bringing only seconds earlier. She rose to her feet and moved towards the fireplace.

“Isabella, don’t – come on.”

Without another word she stepped into the floo.

“Seriously, Isabella, just wait…”

----------------------

But it was too late. Before Lily could even finish the thought, a fuming Isabella was already stepping out of the floo in the drawing room 12 Grimmauld.

She was about half-way out of the room, making a bee-line for the Black library, when she noticed she wasn’t alone. Someone was sitting on the couch behind her, eyes boring holes into her back.

“Oh hello, cousin!”