Chapter Text
Sirius honestly didn't know what he expected to see when he walked into Hadrian's room on the day they were supposed to leave for the Arctic Ministry. The mess he walked into certainly didn't surprise him though. Clothes and toys were strewn everywhere, books were stacked in messy piles near his chests appearing to have been hastily dumped there, and Hadrian himself was half inside a chest flinging all sorts of things that had been packed the night before all over his room in a mad quest to find something. If Sirius were to place a bet on whatever Hadrian was looking for it would probably be on what Kreacher was actively holding with an unimpressed look on his face.
Looking around at the mess, Sirius sighed when he saw Mammon unhelpfully sitting on Hadrian’s bed with a gleam in his eye. Ever the instigator.
“My little hatchling, what are you looking for?” He asked, stepping towards his son, startling him from his progress in digging through what appeared to be chest number three out of the five they were taking with them today.
“The Slytherin fountain pen Uncle Thomas gave to me for my eleventh birthday! I can't go to school without it! I promised Uncle Thomas I would use it to take notes with in class!” Hadrian looked close to tears, green scales growing more prominent on his face in distress.
“Would it perhaps be the golden pen that Kreacher is holding?” Sirius said as gently as he could so as to not provoke Hadrian into a temper tantrum right before they were supposed to leave. The green scales were never a good thing to see on his face unless he was actively shifting between forms.
Hadrian, however, whipped his head towards Kreacher, visibly brightening when he saw the aforementioned pen in his hands.
“You found it!” Hadrian scampered over to Kreacher, “Where did you find it? I must have missed it when I went through the chests.”
“It bes on little Masters desk.” Kreacher replied, handing his son the pen before moving to clean the mess so they could leave on time. Sirius watched in mild amusement as Hadrian froze before slowly turning to look at his familiar who was now looking very nervous from his position on the bed.
“You! You little shit! I am going to feed you to the first dragon we find when we get to the Arctic!” Hadrian's skin on his face went green again, scales starting to pop out spread down his arms, and Sirius honestly hoped that his son would go through with his threat, if only so that this wouldn't be as common an occurrence as it was. But alas, his son would be very sad if he did and Sirius would gladly put up with Mammon if it meant that his son was happy.
He was pretty sure a good majority of the gray hair he had started to notice recently was because of the snake and his antics. And hadn’t that been a horrific moment, Sirius had about cried when he saw the gray hairs as he was brushing his hair a few months ago.
“As much as that would speed up the time you take getting ready every day, I think you would be very sad if you actually went through with that.” Sirius responded, watching as his son comically deflated before scowling and hissing under his breath at the snake who was now slithering towards his travel cage.
“Now,” Sirius said as Kreacher finished putting together the last chest again, “let's go! We have an adventure to go on!”.
His son visibly brightened again before happily running off to the floo and Sirius levitated the now packed chests and sent them after him. Walking over to Mammon, Sirius leaned down and whispered, “You do that again and I promise you that the next molt you have will be painful, do you understand me?”. The snake nodded. “Good.”.
Whistling cheerfully, Sirius walked down the hall towards the floo, Mammon's travel cage floating behind him.
~
Lucius was really starting to curse Lady Fate's decision to send his son to Arcane as he looked around the visitors center. There were parents and children everywhere, a few kids that were running from their parents had already bumped into him, and Narcissa had by chance run into the Italian branch of the Black Family and now had roped everyone into a now hour long chat as they waited to get their bags checked and wands registered. It wasn't even noon and he already wanted to go back to bed.
“Ah Lucius, how nice it is to see you braving the chaos of a school rush.” Lucius’ almost got whiplash at the sound of an eerily familiar voice. The Dark Lord was standing behind him with a smirk on his face, Sirius not far behind him but apparently not paying attention to his surroundings as he was saying something to Hadrian.
“Yes, we've been here for an hour and it hardly feels like we've moved.” Lucius responded, hating that he was in public and had to speak to his lord this way. Speaking to him without using pleasantries and his proper title just felt wrong to Lucius no matter how many times he had now spoken to him in public since his lord had assumed his new public persona.
Sirius seemed to get his message across to Hadrian and looked up at that moment, meeting Lucius’s eye before smirking, obviously having scented fresh blood in the water. Or more accurately, Lucius’s discomfort.
“Lucius, lovely to see you here. I would have thought you would be out of security at this point” Sirius said, looking past him towards Narcissa and the other members of his family, smirk widening.
Lucius was about to respond only to be cut off by his wife who had obviously sensed Sirius’ eyes on her. “My Lord Black, it's lovely to see you! You remember Lepus and Gabriella” she said, gesturing towards the pair.
“Of course he does, he passed out drunk in my orchard after he graduated from Hogwarts.” Lepus said with an amused stare.
“Yes, well-” Sirius grimaced, “that wasn't the best situation.”
“It may not have been the best situation,” Gabriella interrupted with a smirk, “but I did get more ammunition against that bitch Walburga by the time you two passed out.”.
Narcissa smirked as she admired the new nail polish on her fingers and Lucius shivered, that meant she had either done something with that information or had something she was still holding onto to put to good use later on. Neither was a good thing and both Sirius and Lepus seemed to catch onto it as well based on their now deepening grimaces.
The Dark Lord just seemed to be more amused and Draco and Hadrian were now off in their own world. Some days, Lucius wondered what was going through his younger selves head when he thought marrying into the infamous Black Family would be wonderful and the only odd one of the family was Sirius. Now he knew better. They were all mad, just in different ways. He’d never say that to his darling Narcissa though, he valued his life too much. Plus his Slytherin self preservation wouldn't allow that to happen. Lucius shuddered thinking back to all the times his wifes insanity came out, it was never a pretty thing.
He must have spaced out for a bit thinking about it because by the time he tuned back into the conversation the Notts, Longbottom's, and Greengrass's had joined their group and they were significantly further up in line. Looking at Sirius, who gave him a sort of confused shrug, it seemed he wasn't the only one who had been reminiscing about the past. Frowning, Lucius noticed that Lady Greengrass wasn't a part of the group and he shifted where he was in line so he could speak to Sirius without it being blatant.
“As it appears that I wasn't the only one who missed quite a bit reminiscing about the past, would you perhaps know why Lady Greengrass isn't here?” Lucius hoped Sirius wasn't gone as long as he was, it was truly odd for a parent to be absent when sending their child off for their first year of school.
“I believe she is protesting Daphne’s placement here. I tuned in just as Narcissa finished asking so take my interpretation with a grain of salt, I was still pretty confused since I was suddenly not in the same place as I was when I tuned out of the conversation.” Sirius replied to him under his breath and Lucius nodded, that made sense. Narcissa had come back from one of her society group meetings a few weeks ago ranting about how she didn't get any new information because Lady Greengrass had spent the entire time expressing her disapproval about her daughter's school placement. Though, not showing up, even if they were not at platform 9 ¾ and surrounded by a bunch of reporters, was still a huge statement. It was basically telling your child that you don't support them on their upcoming journey and was a huge confidence dampener. Especially for a child that is going away for school in a different country.
One glance at Narcissa told Lucius all he needed to know about her thoughts on Lady Greengrass, none of them being good. In fact, he would bet if not for his wife's high standing in society, she would be one of the first people to send Lady Greengrass a howler. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the person, there was more than one way to make it clear to someone that you disapproved of their actions. Lucius was sure that by the end of today a letter would already have reached Andromeda and Bellatrix about the situation and plans would already be in motion to shame Lady Greengrass.
And based on Daphne's poorly hidden crestfallen expression, Lucius was of the strong belief that Lady Greengrass deserved everything she had coming to her. Once his wife took someone under her wing she would protect that person from everything, even if it was their own family. So yes, Lucius had no pity for Ambrose Greengrass née Rosier.
Fortunately for everyone's mood, the line moved rather quickly after that. Or it seemed to move quickly for Lucius, he still didn't know how long he had spaced out for. A good thirty minutes later they were out of security and heading towards the legal department to get their children set up with school dual citizenship papers and a place to live while they attended school.
Looking back at the line they had just got out of, Lucius thought that maybe his little jaunt through memory lane wasn't a bad thing as the line to get through security now had at least five hundred more people in it than there were when they arrived earlier in the day. He grimaced again when he heard Draco excitedly start to talk about all the different options he had to choose from when picking a place to live. Today was going to be a very long day.