Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

3rd of January, 1980

Walburga stood in the vast drawing room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, her eyes fixed upon the portrait of her late husband, Orion Black, may his memory endure. His gaze met hers sharp, unsparing, and heavy with silent condemnation. He did not speak. He did not need to. The house itself shared in his silence. Even the other portraits, so often inclined to murmur or bicker, had fallen unusually quiet.

She found herself drifting further into recollection, deeper with each breath. It was not the memories themselves that unsettled her, but the ever-tightening grip of disappointment that clutched at her heart whenever she allowed her mind to stray.

It had been a mere fortnight since she buried her husband. Orion Black, once formidable, had succumbed to something as mundane as a heart attack so unceremonious a death for a man of such stature. Privately, she believed it was not his heart but his spirit that had failed him, broken beneath the weight of disappointment. Disappointment in their sons, in the dwindling promise of the ancient and noble House of Black.

There was no heir. Cygnus’s daughters had all married out, bearing other men’s names, as though the Black lineage were some trinket to be discarded. Andromeda’s betrayal had been the final insult filth sullying blood. Deep down, Walburga knew the truth she would not speak aloud: her own son, the last frail hope of their line, had likely perished in the war.

Orion had claimed that Regulus was missing, that he might have been taken by the Order, but Walburga refused to believe such drivel. Her son would never allow himself to be captured alive. Regulus would not flee from duty, nor shirk the burden of war. He was a Black, and Blacks do not run. She knew he was no longer among the living. Of that, she was certain. And not for the first time that day, she found herself wondering whether she ought to commission a portrait for her youngest son as well.

Sirius had long since ceased to be one of them, why could it not have been him who perished in Regulus’s stead? She could scarcely fathom that such filth had issued from her own womb, from the sacred blood of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She knew all too well that he still scurried about on the Order’s errands, sullying their name with every breath. The mere thought of it turned her stomach. “I shall not believe this is how our lineage ends,” she murmured to herself, her voice echoing through the hollow, forsaken house.

She still held hope that the war would end in their favour. There was strength in her yet to rid the world of Mudbloods and to serve her Dark Lord in whatever way she could. She would do all that remained within her power. And if given the chance, she would kill Sirius herself. If she saw him again, she knew she would not falter. The hatred she bore him burned far too deeply. If he had only done his duty, if he had simply stayed, Regulus would not be dead, Orion would not have died in despair, and the Black family would still have a future. But no, he had chosen filth. A Muggle-loving disgrace, a stain upon their name. And she would never forgive it.

The air grew thick, and Walburga suddenly found it difficult to breathe. She felt a presence beyond the protective wards she had cast about her home, and at once she knew it, the Dark Lord. At once, she straightened her posture and forced herself back into the present. It was not the first time she had stood before him, but never before had he come to their home in so private a manner. It could only mean one thing. Regulus was dead. She saw no other reason for his presence.

And even if he had come to deliver news of her heir’s death, she could not fathom why such a message would require his presence in person. Nevertheless, she would show him proper respect. Straightening her spine, she moved swiftly towards the door, opening it with deliberate grace, without hesitation, and bowed low before the figure that awaited her. The Dark Lord regarded her with no trace of emotion. “Raise your eyes, Walburga.” She obeyed at once, meeting his gaze openly. She tried to make it plain through every fiber of her being, that she would do anything for him, for the cause, for the war. She could only hope he was reading her thoughts as clearly as she offered them.

The Dark Lord smiled, seemingly pleased with what he perceived. “Please, do come inside, my Lord. May I offer you tea?” she asked with measured poise. Two masked Death Eaters stepped in behind him, but she gave them no regard. She had no interest in the Dark Lord’s hounds. Should it ever be required, she knew she could curse both of them into oblivion, leave their minds hollow and their tongues stilled, if only he gave the word.

“I should be most obliged, Walburga, thank you. It seems we have a number of matters to discuss.” Walburga did not yet know his purpose, but she suspected it concerned her younger son, Regulus. Or perhaps he required her assistance in dealing with Sirius. She would welcome such a task without hesitation.

“My Lord?” she inquired with due reverence, hoping to advance the conversation. The Dark Lord seated himself in her drawing room, his gaze drifting momentarily to the portrait of Orion, who had just inclined his head in a respectful bow. Kreacher shuffled into the room and froze the instant he laid eyes upon the Dark Lord. A slight tremble passed through him, yet he dutifully set down the tea and a small arrangement of sandwiches before them without a word.

Walburga trembled with fury and struck him sharply on the head. “Useless creature, do not dare to disgrace us by behaving so pitifully in our Lord’s presence!” she barked, her voice sharp with contempt. With a faint pop, the elf vanished from the room. The Dark Lord appeared entirely unmoved by the display, on the contrary, a faint smile curled at his lips, as though reminded of some private amusement. Walburga made no remark. She would not acknowledge the moment further.

“You have failed me, Walburga. You have failed the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. One son, whom you no longer claim, now devotes himself to opposing me and all we seek to achieve. And your other son… he served me loyally, Walburga. But alas, he was not strong enough. He did not meet the standards I require of those who follow me. He is no longer among the living.” The Dark Lord spoke without elaboration, offering no detail as to Regulus’s end. Yet Walburga already knew. She had known it in her bones. Regulus was gone. “My Lord…” she whispered, her voice low with reverence. “I know I have failed my lineage, but I shall not fail you. The House of Black stands with you still and shall continue to do so, in all things you deem worthy. My bloodline may have ended, but yours need not falter here, my Lord,” she vowed, her loyalty unwavering.

“Music to my ears, Walburga,” the Dark Lord said coldly. “It appears I have discovered a most intriguing solution to both our problems. After extensive searching, and the unfortunate necessity of taking a few lives along the way, I came across a rather fascinating ritual.” His lips curled into a sadistic smile, one that, in better days, might well have mirrored Walburga’s own.

“My Lord?” Walburga prompted, urging him to continue. She would do anything, anything, to see his words made reality. Did he know of another heir? Perhaps a bastard of Orion’s? Her husband had sworn, on a day when she had been desperate for a proper successor, that there were no such children. She had been bitterly disappointed. Even an illegitimate child would have sufficed, provided he was of sound blood. She had long known of Orion’s infidelities, though they had always remained within the bounds of pure-blood unions. A bastard born of untainted lineage, if suitably matched to the honor of the House of Black, was something she could have accepted.

“You see, Walburga, I am in much the same position as you. I am certain we shall win this war and cleanse the wizarding world of the filth that infects it. But even with that certainty, I find myself wanting a form of insurance, something to guarantee my legacy. Victory is inevitable, but I intend to strengthen it. And in our world, nothing secures power and continuity more effectively than an heir.”

Walburga nodded throughout his brief address, her agreement unwavering. Indeed, there is no force more enduring than a bloodline. “How may I be of service, my Lord?” she asked, her voice low and eager. Perhaps he sought a pure-blood witch to bear his child, if so, Walburga could offer him the finest candidates. Her genealogical records had never failed her. “Would you have me recommend a suitable pure-blood, my Lord? I know precisely which lineage would yield the most potent and untainted heir,” she declared with conviction, hungry to please him.

“But Walburga, why should I settle for a common pure-blood when you yourself might bear me an heir? There is no blood stronger in our world at present than yours. You need an heir, just as I do,” he said firmly, a smile playing upon his lips. “My Lord... I... I am fifty-five. If it were within my power, I would bear you an heir gladly, but those days, those days are behind me,” she replied with solemn dignity, her tone respectful yet resolute.

“And this, Walburga, is where the rather intriguing ritual I uncovered comes into play.” He cast an aged, yellowed scroll in her direction, but Walburga was not so easily swayed by appearances. Powerful dark magic radiated from the parchment. Unfazed by cursed artefacts or ominous relics, she seized the scroll with her bare hands, showing no hesitation as its energy coursed through her fingers. She unrolled it with care, and her eyes scanned the contents, once, twice, thrice, absorbing every line with growing comprehension.

“My Lord... are you in earnest? You would go to such lengths for the House of Black? There are far simpler means of securing your desire-” Walburga began, but he silenced her with a single raised hand. “I desire the purest, most potent blood for my heir. I want him to bear the Black name. It will be his right to inherit a seat on the Wizengamot. His influence shall be vast, his bloodline formidable. Even should you bear a daughter... it would suffice,” he replied, though his expression tightened ever so slightly at the thought.

“You have one month to give me your answer, Walburga. The ritual is to be performed on Imbolc, as detailed in the texts. Do not disappoint me,” he said, and departed from her home. Walburga remained seated in her chair for some time, staring at the untouched teacup he had left behind. There was no doubt in her mind as to what must be done. Never had she imagined herself the recipient of such an honour, certainly not at her age, and most certainly not after the disgrace her sons had brought upon the family. This was a second chance, and she vowed then and there that this time she would raise a worthy heir. She would not fail again.
If only she knew what awaited her...

1st of February, 1980

Walburga cleansed herself for the third time, as the ritual demanded. Tonight marked Imbolc. The ancient date required by the rite, a celebration of fertility. It was no trivial Muggle observance, but a pure pagan tradition, one rightfully honored by the old wizarding families of unblemished blood. It was hers by right to celebrate. Yet this evening, the occasion would serve a far greater purpose.

She descended into the cellar, which had been prepared meticulously for the evening’s rite. Tonight, the balance between light and darkness would shift; tonight, through the execution of precise and ancient acts, the very laws of nature could be bent. This night would be the one in which her womb was consecrated, and she would conceive an heir for the House of Black, an heir to the Dark Lord himself. Such blood her child would carry, blood of a potency unseen in generations. She could feel her own blood quickening with anticipation. At last, she had been granted the chance to accomplish what she had failed to do with both her sons.

One had betrayed them, the other was weak. Yet this child would be all they were not, she vowed it. The anchoring of a prophecy to a soul yet unborn, she told herself, and she would see to it that this soul was shaped with the proper values, the proper power. The cellar stood ready for the Ritus Viventis Sanguinis, just as she herself was prepared. She lifted her chin, standing tall, and waited for the Dark Lord to grace the evening with his presence. She did not wait long. They were, after all, working to a most exacting schedule.

Thirty minutes before midnight, the Dark Lord entered the cellar, accompanied by Kreacher, who still trembled wretchedly in his presence. Walburga swallowed a sigh, silently vowing to see the creature properly disciplined later. She had already unsealed the chamber with her own blood, ensuring the sanctified space would be accessible to the Dark Lord.

She had confirmed the wards would permit his passage. Every rune had been carved into the walls with precision, every symbol drawn meticulously across the floor. The cauldron stood ready, its contents already bubbling with the required components for the rite. Two Mudbloods lay bound at the center, their muffled pleas rendered pitiful behind silencing restraints. Their blood, and parts of their body, would serve the ritual well.

“Ah, it seems all is in order, dear Walburga. I take it, then, your answer is yes,” said the Dark Lord. Walburga bowed low. “The honor is mine entirely, my Lord. I thank you for deeming me worthy.” The Dark Lord inclined his head and turned his gaze upon the pair of Mudbloods. “Crucio,” he hissed, casting the curse with practiced ease. He took evident pleasure in the anguished contortion of the scrawny man’s face. Despite the gag, the screams echoed throughout the cellar. “Delightful. Precisely what we require,” he remarked, before moving calmly to the center of the ritual space.

Everything proceeded swiftly thereafter. Walburga stood at the center of the room, half-clothed, her head held high with pride, the necessary runes inscribed across her body and lower abdomen. There was no fear in her. If she were to die this night, she would do so gladly. Both she and the Dark Lord sliced their palms, allowing precisely ten drops of blood each to fall into the cauldron. The Dark Lord examined the mixture and appeared well pleased. “Excellent. The potion has taken on the proper hue. I knew you would not disappoint me, Walburga.” She inclined her head, a deep sense of triumph blooming in her core.

Next, the Dark Lord took it upon himself to perform the following step. With calculated precision, he cut into the two Mudbloods and extracted the bones from their forearms. With a simple flick of his wand, he stripped the flesh from the bones, taking the woman’s left and the man’s right, and dropped only the clean bones into the cauldron. Within moments, the potion turned a deep shade of violet, a clear sign that the ritual was progressing as intended. The Dark Lord gave a single clap and let out a low, twisted laugh. “Excellent, excellent. Everything is unfolding perfectly. In roughly ten minutes, you will drink the potion, Walburga, and I shall complete the ritual.”

She nodded and remained patiently in the presence of the Dark Lord, composed yet inwardly elated. The gravity of the moment stirred something fierce within her, she could scarcely wait for the instant she would carry the child within her. After ten minutes, the Dark Lord handed her the precise measure of the potion. It scorched her throat as she drank, but she did not falter, swallowing every last drop. The burning spread from her throat to her stomach, then lower still, settling deep within her abdomen.
She felt the cramping begin, fiercer than any cycle she had ever endured, yet she lifted her chin and looked directly at the Dark Lord. “I am ready,” she said, her voice steady and without hesitation.

The Dark Lord raised his wand and pointed it towards her lower abdomen, intoning, “Sanguis ex Tenebris, Lux ex Nocte Surgat, Filius qui Mundum dividet.” The burning within her flared violently, until someone screamed in agony. It was only after a moment that she realized the scream had come from her own throat. Gritting her teeth, she fought to compose herself once more.

“Did it work, my Lord?” she asked quietly. The Dark Lord examined her abdomen with careful scrutiny. “Yes, Walburga, it worked perfectly,” he replied, before gesturing for her to leave the cellar and make her way upstairs to the bedchambers.

She had never known pride like she felt that night, the night the Dark Lord lay with her and ensured his purpose was fulfilled. The night she felt his seed take hold within her, binding them together in blood and intent. There was nothing tender in it, nothing romantic, yet Walburga understood completely- she was carrying out her duty with unwavering devotion. To be chosen by the Dark Lord was the highest honor, and not once, in all her years with Orion, had she ever experienced such a sense of power, purpose, or triumph.

The Dark Lord remained with her through the night, as she writhed in agony, her body racked with pain and her abdomen aflame in the aftermath of their union. At times, she believed she might die from the sheer intensity of it. Yet, as dawn approached, the torment ceased in an instant, and a profound strength settled within her, greater than she had ever known. She opened her eyes and looked upon the Dark Lord. “Did it work?” she asked.

The Dark Lord looked upon her. “We followed the ritual to the letter. We shall know for certain in a month’s time. I shall send one of my more trusted Death Eaters to confirm and report back to me.” Without so much as a parting glance, he turned and left the house. Walburga remained in bed for many hours, lying on her back, her hand resting upon her abdomen as she whispered lullabies to a child not yet conceived.

After thirty days, one of the Dark Lord’s Death Eaters arrived at her home bearing the Veritas Gravidarum potion. Walburga poured it into the teacup she had just finished, and at once the liquid turned a rich gold, releasing a thin wisp of steam into the air. She let out a sharp cry of joy, knowing, beyond all doubt, that life had taken root within her. The continuation of their House, the heir to the Dark Lord’s legacy. For the first time, she felt a flicker of true joy, of hope.

“My little Dark Lord...” she whispered once the Death Eater had departed, her hands resting gently upon her lower abdomen. “You shall be my pride. You shall become the future of the Dark Lord, of the wizarding world, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.” Her voice trembled as she murmured the words, tears welling in her eyes.

Some forty-five years in the future, and a few realities away, ten-year-old Blair Anderson closed his eyes for the last time. The first Harry Potter book lay on his chest, he’d just started his fifth reread of the series. Off to the side, his tablet was still playing the same TikTok on an endless loop. Blair had no way of knowing this would be the final moment he spent in the world he’d always known. And so, in a quiet room at the Garron Family Cancer Centre, with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia quietly claiming its victory, Blair Anderson slipped away.

Some forty-five years in the past, and a few realities away, a newborn opened his eyes for the very first time. Covered in blood, blinking up at the dim ceiling of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. He lay in stunned silence for a moment before a single, very un-newborn-like thought echoed crisply through his head- 'What the fuck going on?!'

A moment later, he began to cry, the sharp, unfiltered wailing of a newborn taking his very first breath in a world that felt entirely unfamiliar.

Chapter Text

January 2021.

Blair had always been a neighborhood kid. Like, classic Canadian neighborhood kid, the kind who knew every bump in the sidewalk and which porch had the best Halloween candy. They lived in this small ground-floor house with only two bedrooms, and yeah, he shared his room with both of his sisters, but honestly? It was fine.

Sure, sometimes it felt like a sleepover that never ended and also included screaming, but Blair didn’t mind. What he really loved was the neighborhood itself. Most of the kids on the block were in his class at school, so it was like living inside a permanent recess. Moving from kindergarten to grade one? Easiest thing ever. Same kids, slightly scarier homework, and he already knew who not to sit beside during circle time because they’d eat glue. Total win.

His mom worked a lot (like, a lot a lot) and as long as Blair was within visual range of the kitchen window and not actively on fire, she was chill with him disappearing for hours. Their street wasn’t busy at all, just two long rows of houses facing each other like rival hockey teams, and the only cars that showed up were the ones that lived there. Everyone drove like nervous turtles, which was ideal, because the street was basically their playground.

Every day after school, Blair and the crew would chuck their backpacks somewhere vaguely indoors and bolt outside like wild raccoons set free. Dry-land hockey with broken sticks? Yes. Dodgeball with uneven teams and no rules? Also yes. Hopscotch death matches? Obviously. And just when everyone started getting sweaty and dramatic, one of the parents would magically appear with a tray of ice pops, cookies, or those neon freezies that turned your tongue blue for three days. It was perfect. And, like, way cheaper than a babysitter.

After hours of running around like a sugar-fueled maniac, Blair would eventually drag himself home, hop in the shower, and then sit down with his sisters to 'do homework,' which mostly involved trading snacks and arguing over pencil crayons.
Meanwhile, his mom was glued to her laptop at the kitchen island, tapping away like she was trying to win a typing competition for stressed-out moms. She technically worked from home so she could 'keep an eye on them,' but let’s be real, as long as no one was bleeding, on fire, or suspiciously quiet, she wasn’t checking in.

And when Blair says she worked a lot, he means capital-A, caffeine-powered, send-help lot. So they had to make their own fun. And Blair? He was a pro at keeping himself entertained. Give him a crayon, a snack, zero adult supervision, and he was basically unstoppable.

After all, he could run around outside with his friends for hours and not worry about his mom bugging him. Life was pretty great. Until it wasn’t.

It kind of snuck up on him, like a ninja cold or one of those sneaky Lego bricks on the floor you only notice when it’s too late. He remembers it starting a little after he turned seven. One day he was zooming around, doing his math homework (which he may or may not have copied from Brian), packing his lunch with only a tiny bit of help, and showing up to school like a normal kid. The next? Boom. Sleepy Blair mode activated.

It was like someone hit him with a giant invisible sleeping spell. He could barely keep his eyes open during class. Even when Mrs. Peterson did that thing where she clapped really loud out of nowhere to 'wake our brains up.' Instead of racing home and grabbing his hockey stick for the usual after-school showdown on the sidewalk, he’d walk in, mumble something like “I’m not dead, just tired,” and then flop onto his bed. And then… just kinda stay there. Not even cookies could lure him out. Okay maybe one cookie.

His friends started to notice something was up. They’d poke him, ask if he was dying or just being a blob, and kept inviting him out to play like nothing was wrong. His mom kept giving him that squinty look, like she was trying to read his mind through sheer mom telepathy. But Blair? He just couldn’t drag himself out of bed.

It was like his body had declared a full-on strike. No more hockey. No more sweeping up the crumbs his sisters 'didn’t make.' No more doing long division, or short division, or any kind of math-related suffering.
His school grades started to tank, his chores went MIA, and only then his mom snapped into action. “Blair, you are not getting back in that bed!” she yelled, armed with a spatula like it was a sword. “It’s three in the afternoon. You’ve got homework, you need to help your sisters, and then you can sleep.”

And he tried. Honestly. He really, truly, pinky-promised tried. But his limbs felt like mashed potatoes and his brain was playing static. It was like… trying to move through molasses in January. Not fun.

He was burning through every last drop of kid-energy he had just trying to keep his mom from going full meltdown mode. Playing outside? Already off the table. That ship had sailed and hit an iceberg. But his friends didn’t give up. They kept showing up at his door with board games and snacks.

“Blair, come on! You love Monopoly. Just one round, I swear I won’t flip the board this time!” Brian would beg, already halfway through the front door with the game box tucked under his arm. Brian was Blair’s day-one ride-or-die.
They’d been besties since potty training and Brian didn’t care if Blair couldn’t play tag or street hockey anymore, as long as they could still play something together.

But the tiredness kept yanking him under like he’d fallen through a frozen pond and couldn’t claw his way back up, even after clocking ten hours of sleep. It was like he was running on empty all the time, and no nap or chocolate milk could fix it. Everyone started acting weird, whispering and giving him those 'are-you-okay?' looks.

His mom was swamped with work and just chalked it up to early-stage tween attitude. “He used to be such an easy, sweet kid,” he heard her say to her friend one night while she sipped iced coffee like nothing was wrong. “I think he just wants more attention from me. I’ve never been super hands-on.” She thought he wasn’t listening, but he was, and man that stung like getting a brain freeze from chugging a Slurpee way too fast.

Because Blair really didn’t wanna make things harder for his mom or anyone else, he just wanted to keep on living like usual. Riding bikes, joking around, handing in homework like a semi-responsible citizen of second grade. But holy moly, he was exhausted. Like, fall-asleep-on-your-cereal kind of tired. Looking back, they tried everything except the most obvious thing: an actual doctor check-up.

If his mom had just paused for a sec and thought maybe it’s a little weird that her seven-year-old needed fourteen hours of sleep and still woke up looking like a zombie, maybe they would’ve caught it earlier. But for whatever reason, it just didn’t pop into her head that it might be, you know, a medical thing and not just a phase where he suddenly turned into a grumpy old man in a kid’s body.

Everything started going sideways when the bruises showed up like mystery ink on a treasure map. They were everywhere, especially on his back, in spots he definitely hadn’t bumped into anything. His legs hurt all the time, like he'd run five marathons even though all he'd done was shuffle to the fridge.

One morning, he found this old cane someone had left on the sidewalk and thought, 'Yup, that’s mine now,' and hobbled to school like he was eighty-five. When his mom saw him that day, she nearly went full cartoon steam-out-the-ears mode. “I promise, Mom, I just used it to walk. It helped me. I wasn’t trying to embarrass you or anything,” he told her, totally serious. And those words must’ve hit something.

She tossed him into the shower like she was trying to rinse off whatever nonsense he was pulling and that’s when she saw the bruises. Real bruises. Not like a bump from falling off your bike, but splotchy, weird ones that didn’t make sense. At first, she totally lost it, yelling about how he must’ve been scrapping with some kid at school.

Blair, standing there dripping and confused, promised up and down that he hadn’t. Something must’ve finally clicked in her brain that night, because the next morning, instead of jumping into her usual emails and video calls, she had them sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. She was still glued to her phone answering emails with one thumb, but hey, baby steps.

The doctor took one look at Blair and immediately pulled his mom aside, looking serious. Nobody thought to close the blinds, so Blair just sat there swinging his feet and pretending not to listen. But he saw it happen. For the first time ever, his mom started crying. Not just a few tears, but full-on sobbing, like her heart broke all at once. She always said crying messed with her focus, so seeing her lose it like that was kind of terrifying.

The doctor tried to calm her down, and then they came back into the room together. “Blair, we’re sending you to the hospital for more tests,” the doctor said gently. “They’ve got equipment we don’t have here. I really hope I’m wrong and it’s nothing, but your symptoms mean we need to take a better look.” He glanced at Blair’s mom, like he was trying to help her hold it together.

The symptoms were kind of a dead giveaway. Like, anyone with half a brain and a Wi-Fi signal could’ve Googled it and gone, “Yup, that’s it.” When med students started coming around, they called him a 'textbook case,' which Blair thought was kinda hilarious in a super dark way.

He got admitted to the hospital closest to home, and bam, less than two days later, they dropped the big scary name on him: acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Or, you know, ALL, which sounded way cuter than it was.

There were loads of serious chats, a mountain of medical mumbo-jumbo that made zero sense to him, and about a gazillion adults giving him that 'oh no, poor kid' look that made him want to disappear into the floor.

Blair doesn’t remember much from that time, probably because his brain was running on low battery mode 24/7. But he does remember one wild thing: overnight, he became the center of his mom’s attention. After years of feeling like background noise to her work emails, suddenly she was all up in his space, fluffing his pillows and checking his temperature like a nurse on overdrive.

He kinda vaguely remembers someone deciding to transfer him to the Garron Family Cancer Centre, which apparently was a big deal. His mom was actually excited about something for once, mostly because the place was nearby, and they didn’t have to pack up and move or anything.

The first treatments were total garbage, and that’s when Blair realized this wasn’t just some weird cold or whatever. It was real. Like, capital-R Real. Before that, he had kind of secretly enjoyed the extra attention. People finally stopped calling him lazy or dramatic and started treating him like an actual human kid. Honestly, it was kind of a relief.

Turns out the whole being-exhausted-all-the-time thing wasn’t because he was being a slacker, it was because his body was waging some kind of internal war. He’d never actually tell his mom, but there was a tiny voice in his head going, 'Ha! Told you so.' He knew it was messed up to feel good about being sick, but at least now people got that something wasn’t right. They weren’t brushing him off anymore. They were listening. And that felt huge.

Then the treatments kicked in, and Blair, who was trying his absolute hardest to be a good little trooper, started rethinking all his life choices. Like, seriously, if this was what getting better felt like, he wasn’t totally sure he was on board. Some days, he would’ve straight-up picked being sick over taking that nasty medicine.

The first big round was called induction, which sounded like something from a space movie, but nope. It was just a fancy name for a month of full-on chemo chaos. The goal was to shove the cancer into a corner and yell 'Time out!' but all it really did was make Blair feel like he’d been steamrolled by a truck full of expired cafeteria meatloaf.

When his hair started falling out, that was the first time Blair really lost it and bawled. Not just a sniffle, but full-on ugly crying. After every treatment, he would puke his guts out, even if there was nothing in there to begin with. It felt like they were pumping troll spit and dragon venom straight into his veins.

His mom turned the hospital into her personal office and basically lived there with her laptop, bouncing between spreadsheets and holding Blair’s hand. His twin sisters moved in with their grandpa and looked majorly ticked off every time they showed up. “Mom barely sees us because of you. Why can’t you just take some syrup and go to school?” Rita had asked him once, arms crossed like she was about to start a protest.

But after all his hair was gone and he got so scrawny you could basically count his ribs like a xylophone, Blair figured Rita and Rosie finally clued in that syrup wasn’t going to cut it. They stopped visiting after that because he freaked them out.

They couldn’t sleep after seeing him and their grandpa, bless him, couldn’t deal with two terrified five-year-olds having nightly meltdowns. So, everyone just kind of silently agreed it was better they stayed home. Blair was mad about it, sure, but he didn’t blame them. They were little kids and he did look like a haunted stick figure. He hadn’t looked in a mirror since the day his hair gave up and peaced out.

There was no change, no matter how many treatments they threw at him. The doctors kept frowning at charts and the med students whispered more than a bunch of fifth graders in a sleepover tent.

Then, instead of more poking and prodding, they sent him to a nice lady who mostly just talked to him, and honestly, Blair was all for it. Talking? Way better than getting jabbed in the arm every five minutes.

Eventually, even that stopped. No more sessions, just pills to help with the pain and make it a little easier to shuffle around. Weirdly enough, his mom and sisters started going to the chatty lady instead. Which Blair thought was fair. They probably had lots to say.

When he was about eight and a half, his mom started visiting only once a week, and at that point, Blair was basically a full-time resident at the medical center. And yeah, sure, everyone around him looked like they were about to burst into tears at any moment, but Blair? Blair was actually kinda happy for the first time in a year.

Without his mom hovering or nurses chasing him down with needles, he finally had some breathing room. He got to play a bit, or at least as much as his tired body would let him, and the other kids in the ward were the nicest bunch you could imagine.

One time, someone joked that all the kids were extra sweet because when you're dying, you’ve got nothing to lose and no reason to be mean or whatever. Blair wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be funny or just kinda sad. Or maybe it was both. Either way, he didn’t laugh.

They played a gazillion board games, like actual champions of Uno and Blair found two ride-or-die besties in the ward, Kai and Zelda. (Okay, Blair was pretty sure Zelda wasn’t her real name, but it cracked her up every time he called her that, and honestly? Iconic).

They laughed at dumb jokes, made up ridiculous games, and stuck together through the roughest days. People were always stopping by with toys and snacks, like it was Halloween year-round, and Spider-Man himself swung by at least twice a month to hang out. Those days? Pure gold.

It was Kai who got him into the whole Harry Potter thing. Blair had obviously heard of it before, but he figured it was for, like, ancient people. You know, born-before-2010 types. Anything that wasn’t on YouTube or didn’t have a TikTok filter slapped on it felt kinda prehistoric. But Kai was on a mission.

“Blair, it’s legit amazing! There’s magic and wands and, like, flying broomsticks. You love fantasy. This is basically your jam!” he said, practically vibrating with excitement. “Just watch the movies with me, and if you hate them, I promise I’ll stop nagging.” And Blair was like, fine, whatever, not like we’ve got a ton of other stuff to do between barfing and blood tests.

That was the second big thing that totally flipped Blair’s life upside down. The movies? Unreal. Like, full-on magic brain explosion. More than once, he turned to Kai and went, “Okay but seriously, this has to be real. There’s no way someone made this up. We gotta find Harry Potter’s hospital or whatever, because if anyone can fix us, it’s them. With magic.”

Kai just laughed, but Blair was kinda serious. After about a month of movie marathons and deep-dish fan theories, Kai talked him into reading the books. Which was a big deal, because Blair didn’t read anything that wasn’t for school and under extreme protest. Getting through the first two books felt like hiking up Mount Everest in flip-flops, but he did it. And once he hit book three? It was over. He was obsessed, like, full goblin-mode enchanted.

Blair read the whole series with Kai and Zelda, and they went full on nerd with it, like planning weeks of reading sessions and goofy activities for every single book. They even made up their own trivia night, which Blair totally dominated, by the way.

Then one day, the medical team surprised them with actual wands. Like, real handmade ones. Some small artist on Etsy saw one of their TikToks and sent them in. Blair nearly exploded with joy. A month later, instead of the usual Spider-Man visit, a whole crew of people dressed up like wizard students showed up, robes and all, and hung out with them for hours just geeking out over the books. It was, hands down, one of the best days of Blair’s life.

Life was pretty great. Until it wasn’t. Around the time his tenth birthday was creeping up, none of the meds did much anymore, and getting out of bed to pee felt like running a marathon in winter boots. He was just wiped all the time, stuck in bed mostly, scrolling through his tablet like it was his full-time job.

Even reading his favorite books got super hard. His mom started showing up more, and his sisters too, which was kinda weird since they’d been freaked out before. It started to feel like one of those sad movie goodbyes, the kind where everyone acts extra nice. Blair wasn’t stupid. He was almost ten. He knew a real goodbye when he saw one.

By June 2025, Blair couldn’t really do much on his own anymore. Hanging out with Kai and Zelda was out, since he was in isolation most of the time, and honestly, he was sleeping so much it felt like he barely existed. He didn’t really see his mom or his sisters when they dropped by, mostly because opening his eyes was like lifting a mountain, and he didn’t want to hear them cry anyway.

That part sucked. He knew he didn’t got to do a ton with his life, but honestly? He was pretty happy with what he did get. And with a small smile, curled up under his blanket like a cozy burrito, he figured that at least he got the chance to discover, read, and completely fall in love with the Harry Potter universe. Not a bad way to go out.

Also, bonus points, he didn’t live long enough to suffer through algebra. Major win. And hey, he got to meet Kai and Zelda and Brian and hang out with all his awesome friends. Not a bad run, if you asked him.

He didn’t really have any big regrets, not really. He was mostly just glad that pretty soon, nothing would hurt anymore. And turns out, he was right. A few days into June, he just... didn’t wake up. Drifted off like he was taking the world's longest nap, no alarm clock in sight.

Only he did wake up, just not exactly as himself. Well, not in his original body, anyway. Blair was pretty sure he was still Blair on the inside. He still liked cookies more than cake and still thought fart jokes were peak comedy. But for some reason, he was now a literal baby. In a seriously spooky mansion that looked like it ate sunshine for breakfast and sneezed out cobwebs.

Nope. Not doing tummy time in a murder mansion. I refuse. That's not what I died for.

Chapter Text

Okay, so this had never happened to Blair before. Not that turning into a baby was, like, a regular thing people dealt with. “Ba ba, ah ga ga” was the peak of his communication skills at the moment, which was tragic. The first few weeks were just one big fuzzy soup. He couldn’t think straight, and his vision was upside down.

Blair could only think straight for maybe five seconds at a time, and the whole world felt backwards, and maybe underwater. Things only started making sense after about a week, when his eyeballs finally stopped glitching and he saw the world correctly.

This is what babies go through?? It was a straight-up nightmare. Between passing out and chugging milk (and thank everything good in the world that it was from a bottle), Blair’s brain couldn’t hold a single solid thought. He was either asleep, eating, or being wobbled around by some older lady who looked like she hadn’t smiled since the invention of socks.

When Blair’s brain and eyeballs finally teamed up, everything was weird. The house looked creepy, the vibe was spooky, and he had zero idea what was happening. Time made no sense, felt endless and zoomy at the same time. But he pulled it together, stayed awake without spacing out every five seconds, and even sat up on his own. Skill issues? Couldn’t be him.

By then, Blair’s brain was finally working, which felt like unlocking a new level. He looked around and realized he was sitting on this weirdly fancy blanket, surrounded by wooden toys. Real wood. Someone had taken an actual tree and whittled it into baby entertainment. Where was the good old plastic stuff with buttons and annoying songs? What was this, historical reenactment daycare?

The mansion Blair was stuck in stayed dark all day because someone thought blocking the windows was a great idea. Everything felt old and dramatic, like he’d been dropped into a gothic novel, but the place was weirdly spotless. Dust? Never heard of her.

Blair kept waiting for dust bunnies to pop out and invite him to a tea party. But no, turns out the whole haunted house aesthetic was just a personal choice by the terrifying lady who insisted she was his Mom.

The second Blair’s brain clicked on, he noticed his ears were working too, and the scary lady? Would. Not. Stop. Talking. Full-on dramatic monologues, all day. Back in 2025, his original Mom, Susan, was decent, but he was never exactly on top of her to-do list. This new one? She didn’t blink without making sure he was involved. He was the main quest, the side quests, the bonus level, and the loading screen.

Okay, Blair got it, he was a baby now, but this was getting weirdly intense. She really didn’t need to hover over him while he slept! Her stare could power a horror movie, and every time he woke up, boom, there she was, parked beside him, staring like he was the grand finale of a fireworks show. It was freaky on so many levels.

“Ba ba ga da da,” Blair told her his thoughts, clearly explaining she was being next-level freaky. She just nodded with this tiny smile, sitting in that chair like it was her full-time job to guard his toy mat. Maybe that was normal? He guessed babies did have a weird habit of self-destructing. But during naps? Come on. His original Mom had at least tried to sleep when the twins were out cold.

Blair managed to figure out a few things during this whole baby era. One, he was a baby. No denying it. Two, he was a boy baby, thank God. No hate or anything, but he was so not emotionally prepared to part ways with his parts. And three, his new Mom could one hundred percent pass for his grandma, but hey, no judgment.

Unless this was secretly a true crime documentary, and she’d kidnapped him or something. They never left the house, and when people did show up, it was only for a little bit, and she never let anyone see him. So yeah. Totally normal.

As time went on, Mom 2 was looking more and more stressed. Blair managed to sneak a peek at some of the people visiting them, and wow, they were just as creepy as Mom 2. Mostly dressed in black, half of them wearing masks for no reason, whispering about who knows what. He couldn’t hear anything, but he was pretty sure there was plotting involved. This had serious main villain energy written all over it.

Blair wasn’t sure where he was or what exactly had happened. He had all his memories from his old life, and they felt real enough to punch him in the face. So yeah, guess reincarnation was real. He also really, really missed his sisters, his friends, and even Mom 1. And that was saying something, because she used to forget him at the grocery store. It happened twice!

And then Blair realized something amazing. He didn’t feel sick anymore! He had energy to play again, and wow, he had missed this so much. Being a baby was super weird, but he figured once he unlocked all his motor skills again, he’d be golden. Just had to relearn how to human, one wobbly step at a time.

While Blair was busy overthinking what had happened and where he even was, something weird caught his eye. The pictures were moving. That’s when he got suspicious. Why were the pictures on the wall moving? It felt like he was stuck in the Middle Ages, but someone out here had the tech to hang people-playing-on-loop screens like it was a Tuesday. What was this, medieval Netflix?

Everything was mega confusing, and every day Blair tried to add more pieces to the giant mystery puzzle that was his life. Mom 2 kept singing, reading him weird old books, and feeding him some truly awful mush. He guessed it was healthy, but his taste buds filed a complaint.

Blair started to figure out the language was English, and lately he’d been able to understand Mom 2 pretty well. Not that she said anything useful around him. It was all baby talk, like he didn’t have a full adult brain just chilling in this tiny potato body. Oh, and yeah, his name was still Blair here too. Wild, right?

“You’re playing so nicely, Blair, show Mummy how you shake your rattle,” she said out of nowhere, snapping Blair out of his deep baby thoughts. He’d been zoning out, but he showed her anyway, because that whole hand-waving thing had taken forever to master and he was proud of it.

She clapped her hands. “Clap with Mummy, Blair.” So he clapped too, very seriously, like it was a competitive sport. And yeah, it made him weirdly happy to see her smile like that.

She might have been a super scary lady, but even she couldn’t resist the full-force baby charm of yours truly, baby Blair. One more thing he figured out? He was a really cute baby. His face kinda looked like hers, which was weird, but he had this pale blond, almost silvery hair and bright blue eyes that screamed 'main character coming through.'

“Ga ga da ma da,” Blair said proudly, hitting her with the full puppy-eye combo. She looked ready to faint from the cuteness overload. That’s right, lady, stare into these big blue eyes. No baby on earth was cuter than him. He bet he came out wrinkle-free like some limited edition.

Even though Blair’s brain was running on full 10-year-old power, his body missed the message completely. Baby stuff was still baby-level hard.

But he got pretty good at sending signals, and Mom 2 caught on fast. He’d squeeze his tiny fist when he was hungry and go full tap-dance with his legs when he needed a diaper change. They had a system.

Mom 2 was super strict but weirdly good at her job, so Blair didn’t even bother crying. What was the point? She always knew exactly what he needed. She was really smart, even if she was also terrifying in a mysterious 'might-turn-into-a-bat' kind of way.

And so the days rolled on, each one dropping a new mystery in Blair’s lap. Why did the paintings talk? And why were they talking about him? Not that he was complaining, he was ridiculously cute and clearly excellent gossip material.

Mom 2 always had this wooden stick thing, and every time she waved it, stuff just happened. He was shook. He demanded an encore. Then another. Then one more for science.

Mom 2 was probably a witch. Blair really hoped no one found out and tried to hang her if they were actually in medieval times or something. She noticed how pumped he got every time she used magic and started doing it more just to make him laugh.

She’d whip up tiny fireworks and shiny silver animals that danced around and played with him. He was her number one fan, front row, rattle in hand. It was awesome.

Blair started talking to the paintings on the wall. “Ga ga ga!” he told one of them with full confidence. The painting guy looked horrified and vanished, well, not vanished, more like sprinted into another painting. Ha. Guess they were all friends, how nice.

They whispered to each other all the time, but never out loud when he was around, so he spent most of his day confused and mildly offended.

“The boy,” one of the paintings started, and Blair went full undercover mode, pretending not to listen while locking in like a baby secret agent. “He understands everything, he’s got smart eyes,” it kept going. Great. Outed by his eyeballs.
Okay wow, the paintings were smart too. “He’s developing too fast, he’s too clever,” another one said with dramatic flair.

Blair shrank into himself a little. Yeah yeah, he wasn’t the average baby. He’d already lived ten full years and mastered all the motor skills he was now flopping at. Thanks for the reminder, wall art.

“Silence!” the main painting suddenly yelled. Yes, he was the main one. That was Blair’s headcanon and he was sticking to it. “You will not speak that way about the Lord’s child!” he shouted, and boom, all the other paintings zipped it. Blair’s dad was a lord? He was pumped. Bring on the castle, the feast, maybe a pet horse.

If they really were in medieval times and Blair was the son of a lord, then he’d hit the jackpot. Land, animals, maybe a fancy noble girl to marry once he was done teething. He kept giggling to himself like he’d just won the royal baby lottery.

The paintings froze the second Blair started giggling. “He knows…” one of them whispered. “He knows he’s the one continuing the line of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” another added.

Huh? What was that even supposed to mean? Why did it sound familiar? He’d only been giggling because he thought he was some fancy lord’s kid. Rich kid moment! “Ga da mee ga!” he explained very clearly to the wall crew.

Ever since then, the paintings shut up every time Blair crawled into the living room on one of his great escapes from Mom 2. Yeah, he could crawl now. No big deal. He started wondering if Dad knew Mom was a witch. Maybe that was why he was never around?
Blair just hoped his dad hadn’t headed off to some war or something. Knights didn’t exactly have a great track record with keeping all their limbs, and he was a big fan of having the full set.

Mom 2 caught Blair. “Blair, you’re so fast already,” she said, all proud of his baby parkour. “Come back to your room, I laid out all the toys you like.” Toys? Say no more. He was in.

Or she could just carry him, her choice. “Ga ga da!” he told her with his best cheerful face, and she laughed and started brushing his hair back.

By the way, Blair’s hair was getting pretty long. Could she not give him one of those embarrassing little kid ponytails? It kept falling in his face. “Ga mee aaa da!” he said, pointing at his hair with full baby-level seriousness.

“Okay okay, if you hadn’t run off, I would’ve tied your hair up,” she said, waving her wooden stick thing. One second later, Blair felt that warm puff of air that meant magic was about to happen, and boom, his hair braided itself into a tiny little Chinese braid right on top of his head. His hair wasn’t even that long, but he guessed it was enough. “Gaaaaaaah!” he yelled, super impressed. Mom 2 was amazing with that stick.

Mom 2 giggled to herself and plopped Blair down on his super fancy-feeling rug for playtime. So he did what any professional baby does, he played. And played. Then there was this poof sound out of nowhere, but he didn’t even bother looking up. He was deep in the zone.

“Mistress, I know you said I’m not allowed in this room, but there are people at the entrance. They’re demanding to see you. They said they’re Aurors.”

That snapped Blair right out of play mode, he looked up so fast his neck almost filed a complaint.

“Dgaaaaaay!” Blair yelled in full baby panic. Standing right in front of him was this tiny, wrinkly dude with long ears, a giant nose, and a shiny bald head. He did not look human. Oh no. Was this it? Was he about to die again? Because that would be really unfair.

But the weird little guy didn’t even look at Blair. He just bowed his head and started shaking like he was one sneeze away from bursting into tears. Yeah, okay, fair. Mom 2 could be terrifying. “Kreacher, you little rascal, you’re scaring Blair!” she shouted.

Blair had never seen Mom 2 that mad before. Full volcano mode, smoke-coming-out-of-her-ears level. Mental note to self: never throw pudding at her again. Or maybe just limit it to once a week. Special occasions only.

Wait a sec. Kreacher? Aurors? Talking paintings? A magic wooden stick? Why did all this sound way too familiar? Ohhh. The realization hit Blair like slipping on black ice in February, and he swore his brain skidded straight into a snowbank.

Could it be that he was- “Did I get isekai’d into the wizarding world?!?” he yelled, super clear, with a very dramatic delivery, also with a perfect British accent. Where did that accent even come from?

Mom 2 looked at Blair like he’d sprouted a second head. Even Kreacher peeked up for half a second, then panicked and face-planted into a bow again. “Latin? Could it be…” she mumbled, clearly glitching. “Blair, darling, what did you just say?”

Oh shit. Blair just figured out how to talk and immediately outed himself. Great job Blair. Who knew what those creepy black-cloaked people would do if they found out? What did you even do with a reincarnated baby if you caught one? Put it in a jar? Feed it secrets? And what if Mom 2 got mad about the whole Canadian thing? Sorry he was born in Toronto, woman, take it up with the universe.

“Ga dee gaga.” Blair tried to slide back into baby mode like nothing happened. Talking was great and all, but he should probably watch his mouth before he got tossed into a cauldron. Then, with his best innocent baby voice, he shouted, “Mom, door!” Perfect distraction. Classic misdirection. Ten points to Baby Blair.

Her eyes went full saucer mode. “The child’s not even a year old and just said a full proper sentence,” she said like she’d just seen a shooting star land in her living room. Okay, crisis mostly dodged. Time to lean into the role. Presenting, amazing baby Blair, language prodigy.

Blair puffed out his tiny baby chest. That’s right, Mom 2, he was incredible. Shower your praise upon baby Blair, the adorable little lord of everything soft and squeaky. Although now that he thought about it, he probably wouldn’t be a real lord if this was the Harry Potter world.

Blair knew he should really unpack that later. “Mistress, please, the Aurors are at the door… with Dumbledore, they have a warrant from the Ministry,” Kreacher said. That yanked Mom 2 straight back to reality.

“Kreacher, watch over Blair and don’t let anyone into this room!” she shouted, then slammed the door behind her like they were in a wizard soap opera. Just before it shut, Blair felt that warm little zap in the air, which meant she’d probably thrown some magic wards around. Great. Now he was officially baby-level grounded with magical security.

Kreacher stood off to the side, slightly shaking. Was he scared… of Blair? Seriously? You’re telling him this ancient house-elf is afraid of a baby? Blair grabbed his rattle like it was a legendary weapon, gave him his biggest grin, and shouted, “Kricker!” all cheerful and proud.

Kreacher stood off to the side, shaking a little. Was he seriously scared… of Blair? He was a baby, dude. Blair grabbed his rattle and gave him his best innocent smile. “Kricker!” he shouted with a giggle.

Kreacher looked up at Blair in shock. “Kricker, come!” Blair tried again, shaking his rattle. Come on, play with me! He really hoped the little guy got the message.

But Kreacher just stood there shaking like a leaf, and honestly, Blair was pretty bummed no one wanted to play. But wait a sec… wasn’t Kreacher the house-elf for the Black family? What was he doing with Mom 2? Where even were they? And what year was it? And, hold up, Dumbledore?! Dumbledore’s here?!

Blair wanted to meet him so bad! Could it be real? Had he actually woken up in the Harry Potter world? He didn’t even get to make a Make-A-Wish last time because he’d been way too sick, and now here he was, living the dream with extra sparkles.

Did he seriously get a second shot at life in the wizarding world? He knew those books were way too detailed to be made up. That was not regular author energy.

Could Blair have magic too? Just like Mom 2? That thought got him way too excited. “Ga dee ga ga magic!” he giggled so hard he almost tipped over.

He grabbed his rattle, held it like a wand, and shouted the one spell he could remember, “Lumos!” He yelled it super loud, still laughing, and bam, tiny glowing orbs filled the room, floating around like a thousand candles. “Aaaaaah,” he said, eyes wide. He was amazed. And maybe a little smug.

Okay, so magic was indeed something Blair could do. Was the rattle a wand?! Mom 2 was mad for giving him this. Or maybe this was part of the accidental magic kids were supposed to do before starting school.

Yeah, no, he didn’t do stuff by accident, not him. That Lumos was completely intentional. And actually, this wasn’t exactly Lumos either.

The pretty little lights filled the whole room and floated around, dancing exactly where Blair wanted them to go. Kreacher stared at him, mouth wide open like he’d just seen a niffler rob Gringotts. Oh, now he was paying attention. “Kricker, lights!” Blair said, pointing proudly.

“Yes, Master, I can see the lights,” Kreacher said, still blinking like Blair had just summoned Merlin himself. “Mistress will be most pleased.”

“Yayyyy!” Blair squealed in delight. More praise for baby Blair, the best baby-not-baby in the entire world, thank you very much.

Blair left the lights alone for a second and got back to his mental detective work. Dumbledore and the Aurors were here? Why? Well, he guessed Mom 2 was probably in league with some Death Eaters. Or maybe Grindelwald? Or something super villain-y and definitely racist.

The question was, what exactly was going on and what year were they even in right now? Blair could hear shouting outside the door.

Mom 2 was livid, full-on drama mode. Something was definitely wrong. Oh no. Was he in danger? Was this how he got turned into an educational warning for young wizards?

“Kricker, what is Mommy name?” Blair asked in the babiest voice he could manage, giving up on the baby gibberish apparently. And hey, he was a baby, babies didn’t know their moms’ names, right? Kreacher went pale. “H-her name is Walburga, young Master. Walburga Black. As you are Blair Orion Black, her son,” he said, eyes glued to the floor like the carpet was suddenly fascinating.

Who the hell was Walburga Black?? Aside from random trivia night facts, Blair was a little guilty of skipping the lore parts in the books to get to the interesting stuff. Oops. He hadn’t exactly planned on actually needing that information, if he was honest.

And yay, middle posh name. Ha. Posh. Look at him, the UK got Canada again. He squinted and tried thinking really, really hard. “Kricker, what is my dad’s name?” he asked, trying to get more clues, turning on full baby puppy eyes even. Kreacher looked at him, pale as a ghost, trembling... and just straight-up fainted. Oops.

“Oh no, Miss Rabbit has fainted,” Blair giggled to himself, but still crawled over to Kreacher to make sure he was okay. He was breathing, so that was good. Blair plopped down next to him and casually levitated his legs up to help the blood get back to his brain. Look at him, magical baby and part-time healer.

Ha, no need for the rattle, Blair just thought about it and up the legs went. He put his tiny hand on Kreacher’s forehead, trying to ease him back into consciousness like a very small, very magical nurse.

The door flew open with a big boom and Mom 2 rushed in. She looked terrible and frantic and completely stressed out. She was fifty-six, someone needed to be careful around her! “Mommy!” Blair screamed. “Kricker fainted,” he announced proudly, using his shiny new ability to form a full sentence. “Oh, that foul creature-” she stopped mid-sentence.

She stopped and looked around. “Blair… darling, did you do this?” she asked, eyes on all the little lights floating around the room. Blair nodded sweetly, extra cute so she wouldn’t get suspicious. “Lumos!” he giggled.

In that moment, a bunch of scary but unmasked adults stormed into the room, wands up. Oh look, Gandalf showed up too! Wait... was that Dumbledore??? “Dumbledore!” Blair screamed with delight. Oh, he was going to destroy him with his overwhelming baby cuteness. Prepare yourself, old man. You’re going to love Blair.

“What is the meaning of this, Walburga?” he asked, clearly alarmed. He wasn’t yet the calm, twinkly-eyed man from the books. Right now, he looked a bit frantic and definitely not as old. Less wise headmaster, more stressed-out professor on his third cup of tea.

“That’s dear Albus,” Mommy said, all sugar-laced venom. “Is my eleven-month-old son, displaying his magic for the first time.” Then she pulled out her wand like a mom on a mission, full-on mama bear. “Go, Mommy, go!” Blair cheered like the world’s most supportive baby.

All the adults stared at Blair, then at poor fainted Kreacher with his legs still floating in the air like a wonky puppet.

“And why, Walburga,” Dumbledore said, “is your eleven-month-old son casting magic that appears anything but accidental, levitating a house-elf’s legs, and addressing me by name?” He sounded calmer now, probably because Blair was a baby, and babies, apparently, were not to be screamed at.

“That’s… a very good query,” Mom 2 replied, all proper and chilly. Everyone turned and stared at Blair again. He sucked in a big breath. “Pretty lights!” he said, because obviously that explained everything. No one reacted. “Pink!” he shouted, and boom, the lights turned pink like he’d summoned the power of a glitter storm.

“Pink now, better?” Blair asked in his most innocent baby voice. Still nothing. “Kricker fainted!” he added, gesturing wildly. “I do up up to his legs so blood go back to head.” come on. Basic biology, people. Keep up.

Blair patted Kreacher’s forehead gently. “Here here, Kricker, soon feel better,” he said, trying to comfort the poor guy.

Honestly, he thought he was being super helpful, but judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, the pink lights didn’t calm anyone down.

If anything, they made the Aurors (he was pretty sure they were Aurors) look even more panicked. Great. His magical light show had just made the room thirty percent more tense.

Kreacher woke up for half a second at that moment, looked at the Aurors, Mom 2, then at Blair, and just straight-up fainted again. Blair gasped dramatically. “Oh no, Miss Rabbit has fainted again!” he declared, all proud of his meme delivery. Nobody laughed. Ugh. Boomers from the past had no taste.

"I didn’t know you had a third son, Walburga," Dumbledore said, all serious and wizardy. Wait, third? Blair had siblings?! Oh my gosh, maybe they were fun! Maybe they knew how to play Uno!

"Can we play with them?" he asked Mom 2 with his biggest baby eyes. She looked sad for a moment, just a blink, but kept her wand raised like she was ready to blast anyone who got too close to her emotionally gifted baby.

"You may search the premises," Mom 2 said, her voice all spine-chilling, "but leave my son out of this, he has nothing whatsoever to do with it."

She gave them a death glare so sharp Blair was surprised no one turned into a toad on the spot. "If you’re not here to arrest me, then search what you must and kindly let me be." Dang, Mom 2 really said ‘back off’ in pure aristocrat.

Yeah, Mom 2, tell them to get out of Blair’s playtime! Dumbledore looked him dead in the eyes, and for a second Blair thought he was trying to Legilimens him or whatever, but he didn’t feel a thing, brain still very much uninterrupted.

Then Dumbledore’s eyes went wide, and he started breathing all weird, like he’d just realized something. Like Blair reminded him of someone. Great, he broke him.

“Oh umm, please faint on the carpet if you must,” Blair told him, ready to catch the old man with his new, extremely impressive baby magic. Dumbledore ignored him, rude, and just kept staring like Blair had grown a second head and it was singing the Hogwarts school anthem.

“Walburga… what have you done?” he asked her, looking properly horrified. What had Mom 2 done now? Did she forget to offer tea or something? Blair sighed. Lower your expectations, please. The tea here was cursed anyway.

Mom 2 stiffened like someone had just insulted her wallpaper. “I have done nothing but my duty. Last I checked, becoming pregnant to secure the sacred Black bloodline is entirely legal,” she said, all posh fury and narrowed eyes. She looked ready to duel Dumbledore with a glare alone.

She also needed to lower her expectations of Blair, by quite a lot. He was there to win at Uno and perhaps score some snacks from people, not to secure any ancient magical bloodlines.

“B-but how? No, it’s not possibl-” Dumbledore started, looking like someone just told him the sky was made of custard. Blair watched as Mom 2 cut him off with a glare sharp enough to slice through steel. “Do what you must, Dumbledore, but leave me and my poor child alone,” she snapped, full dramatic mother bear.

“Yeah!” he yelled right through the tension like an absolute legend. “Or I’ll do boom boom with the pink lights!” he declared and summoned one right to his hand. He focused real hard and, poof, pink baby fireball. Wow.

Everyone stared at him like he’d just pulled a Hungarian Horntail out of his diaper. Even Mom 2 looked alarmed. Success.

“Blair! Darling, put the fire out, you may keep the lights. Go and make sure Kreacher is all right,” she says, her voice wobbling just a bit. Blair quickly snuffed the pink fire. “Sorry, Mommy! I’ll stay with Kricker!” he chirped, all proud and smiley, as if he hadn’t just threatened arson.

Nobody looked relieved for the fainted house elf.

Chapter Text

Blair had never been the brightest kid around, but, to be honest, he’d confused himself so thoroughly that he hadn’t the foggiest how to untangle the mess. Now that he’d somehow unlocked the ancient toddler art of full sentences, perhaps it was time to start asking a few tactful questions and see where they led him.

He called out, “Kricker!” again, but the house elf didn’t even twitch. Blair was pretty sure the elf was faking it by now. Truth be told, he’d fake‑faint too if he could, but that would just summon Mom 2 back here at full speed, and right now, she really needed to be out there making sure the Aurors didn’t find anything too… incriminating.

Bored, Blair messed around with the lights he'd created and waited for Mom 2 to come back, though let it be known this was an official protest. As her son, he had to present a united front for the scary Ministry people, but deep down, he just wanted to chill with Dumbledore and show him his extremely impressive toy collection. Priorities.

Blair would need all the help he could get at school, so obviously, he should be working his way onto Dumbledore's good side. But nooo, they just left him here with a fake-fainting Kreacher, absolutely nothing to do except rattle his rattle and shake his diaper for entertainment like some kind of magical maraca gremlin.

Eventually, Mom 2 came back looking even more disheveled and stressed; the poor woman looked like she'd wrestled a banshee and lost. "Mommy! Up!" Blair demanded with all the authority of a royal potato. "Oh, Blair," she said, sounding downright heartbroken.

"The most awful news I could have received, oh, this is terrible." She scooped Blair up like a security blanket and clutched him to her chest. He patted her hair like a gentle emotional support hamster. "There there, Mommy," he said, soothing both her and his own chaos.

"Oh, you are such an extraordinary child, so bright, so powerful. Not all hope is lost; we still have you. He might have fallen, but we have a piece of him right here," she mumbled into Blair's hair. Umm, Mother, I’m a baby, he thought.

"I require some exposition," Blair told her in his best posh accent, then tacked on a sweet "Mommy" at the end for maximum cuteness. Blair, focus, he thought. Full sentences are fun and all, but you’re still in a squishy baby body, dial it back to baby-toddler-core.

“Darling, you are too young, oh just far too young, but you are bright,” she said, all dramatic and fluttery. “A few days ago, the most horrid thing imaginable occurred, all because of those Potter blood traitors,” she spat, as if the name tasted rotten.

And there it was, wizard racism! It took longer than Blair expected, to be honest. He must've made a face, because she narrowed her eyes and added, “What is that expression, darling? Did you eat something sour?”

She squinted at Blair, checking if he'd somehow snuck a lemon past her. Yeah, he had one of those faces, it didn't matter what he said, his expression ratted him out. "Mommy," he huffed, dragging it out like the dramatic baby he was, trying to wave her back into her speech. Keep it moving, lady, the suspense is murdering me, he thought.

“Our Lord has already won, those stupid Order bastards had nothing left. Your mongrel brother couldn’t even help them. ‘Final strike,’ they said in the Death Eater meeting, to stop some ridiculous prophecy about a blood traitor’s child.” She looked absolutely appalled.

“And apparently a baby, a baby just a bit older than you, has defeated him! Everything crumbled, Death Eaters began fleeing or getting captured, oh what a dreadful affair. Your brother, Regulus, he was loyal, but weak. He fell in the war. Utterly disgraceful. One son a blood traitor and the other dead! But I have you, darling, we have you. The Dark Lord may have fallen, but his legacy is nestled right here in my arms,” she finished, fully committing to her dramatic villain monologue while Blair sat there wondering if this was a good time to ask for a snack.

And it was... a lot. Wait a minute. Hold on. No. No no no. Are you telling me the Dark Lord is my dad?! Blair thought. Mom 2, what in the seven layers of hell?! You didn’t have a functioning Tinder account so you just went and reproduced with a wand-happy megalomaniac??

That’s your plan?! No magical dating scrolls available, huh? Just skipped straight to 'unholy ritual with a noseless tyrant'? Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

"Voldemort is my dad?!" Blair shrieked, absolutely scandalized. Mom 2 didn’t even flinch. “Yes, my darling. And where have you heard our Lord’s name? If anyone has the right to utter it, it is you.” Oh no. Oh no no no. Abort mission, Blair thought, scrambling.

"The paintings!" Blair squeaked, cranking his voice into full baby innocence. “Said he was really strong,” he added, flexing his tiny noodle arm for dramatic effect. Because apparently, that was his life now: cursed bloodline and baby biceps.

“Oh, of course, those are our family members, portraits, not paintings, darling,” Mom 2 corrected with her usual aristocratic sniff.

“And yes, he is your father. It was frightfully difficult to conceive you, but we succeeded. You are such a gift.” Then she hugged Blair so tightly he thought his tiny ribs might pop like a bubble. Fantastic, he thought. I'm Voldemort’s miracle baby. Just what every reincarnated Canadian kid dreams of.

“He may be gone, but not his ideas, not his blood. You are the future, Blair,” she said all dramatic and full of foreshadowing.

Oh no. Nope. Blair was not leading a bunch of posh, wand-waving Brits into any magical nonsense. Not happening. That whole blood purity thing was stupid in the books and made even less sense now that he was technically part of the evil royal family.

And furthermore, Mom 2, Blair was very much a Muggle-born, originally, if not a full-on Muggle. He didn't say any of that out loud, of course, because he was a literal baby and he still needed her to feed him, change him, and keep him alive in general.

“Blair, you’re making that face again, darling, is everything quite all right?” she asked, sounding concerned. Ugh. My stupid face and its constant habit of expressing judgment without my permission! Blair thought.

“Daddy is dead,” Blair said with the most dramatic stage voice he could muster, channeling all the inner theatre kid he never was. “Oh darling, I am so sorry, those horrid blood traitors,” Mom 2 sighed, already spiraling into her evil wizard racism monologue like it was Shakespeare night at Death Eater camp.

“Darling, how did you make those lights? How did you know the word ‘Lumos’?” she asked, eyes sharp. Blair considered faking a nap, a classic baby move, but she wasn’t buying it.

“The pain- the portraits tell me magic words, Mommy,” he said quickly, all innocent and wobbly-voiced. She relaxed like he’d just quoted a bedtime story instead of confessing to chatting up the haunted wallpaper.

As if it was completely normal to teach a one-year-old spells via the hanging wall crew. “Oh, you are so extraordinary, darling. Wandless magic! I’ve never witnessed such a marvel. I must research this at once!” she exclaimed. Please don’t, Blair thought. He'd got enough to unpack without Mom 2 running magical diagnostics on him.

Mom 2 still looked absolutely devastated over Voldy’s downfall, and Blair was over here spiraling because he just found out he was genetically tethered to the magical world’s biggest bald menace.

Blair thought he'd hit the jackpot landing in the Harry Potter universe, but nope, some cosmic intern decided, 'Let’s make the Canadian kid Voldemort’s son, that won’t traumatize him at all.' Great. Brilliant. He was never making friends, was he? No one was going to play Uno with the Dark Lord’s spawn. Tragic.

And that meant it was the '80s now, sort of. Blair was going to grow up in the '80s and '90s, how vintage of him. Shoulder pads, bad perms, and cassette tapes awaited.

Also, this was the time Voldemort got defeated the first time, so hooray for temporary peace, he guessed. No war for a bit, but still... he was living through a prequel and he was related to the villain. Classic.

And ohhh, a very big ohhh. Mom 2 was Sirius Black’s mother! Blair remembered now; he had a brother, the one who went and stole the locket horcrux from Voldemort like a sneaky legend.

But wait, that meant this woman holding him like a prize pumpkin was the Mrs. Black, the one the books said was completely awful. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Blair supposed she was. She was really going all in on the whole 'evil baby messiah' thing, putting her entire faith in his chubby little hands. But he was cute! His bone structure alone screamed cuddle me, not conquer the wizarding world.

Blair wasn't doing any of that nonsense. It was way more fun being friends with everyone, who even cared what kind of blood was in their veins?

Honestly, pureblood drama was exhausting. “Blair, your face again, are you unwell?” Oh come on, lady, leave my face alone! Let it emote in peace, he thought.

So now Blair had finally pieced it together, where he was, when he was, who he was, and, unfortunately, who he was related to.

And he was also painfully aware that by the time he hit the ripe old age of six and could string opinions together without drooling on himself, Mom 2 would be expecting a full-blown little blood purist. Yeah, no. He wasn’t here for that. Not even a little bit. That was a firm baby pass from him.

But Blair had some time to chill. He was a baby, the war was done for now. Nobody expected anything from him except the occasional adorable giggle and maybe a magical light show.

So he would rattle his rattle, maybe drool with purpose, and commit to living his best cute baby life while he still could.

Mom 2 had other plans though. Over the next few weeks, she kept spanning around the house in dramatic robes, having very important meetings with people Blair was pretty sure were Death Eaters on the run or shady law wizards trying to sweet-talk their clients out of an Azkaban vacation. I mean, priorities, right? Blair thought. Me: trying to master stacking blocks. Her: running a post-war criminal support hotline.

You’d think that with all her dark plotting Blair would be left alone to play with Kreacher and maybe chew on a block in peace, but nooo. The moment she realized he could semi-talk, it was all, “if you can talk, you can recite bloodline etiquette and master beginner spell theory.”

So now Blair spent his days in tiny robes, stuck in lessons about wandless casting, which fork to hex first at a pureblood dinner, and reciting the names of dead relatives like it was Hogwarts History Bingo. His baby brain was melting.

At least Mom 2 didn’t try teaching Blair how to read or do math yet, thank Merlin. Reading? Fine, he could fake his way through phonics and pretend the portraits were giving him nightly bedtime stories. But maths? Absolutely not. He died once, he wasn’t doing long division in this life too.

But apparently, Blair was going to learn the Unforgivables before he even got to the bloody alphabet. Priorities, right? he thought. Who needs A-B-C when you’ve got A-K? C is for Crucio and all.

Blair’s first birthday came in November and it was... decent. Nothing wild, no magical petting zoo or floating cupcakes or whatever toddlers got in this world.

Just a tiny cake with a few wonky candles Kreacher whipped up, bless him. Mom 2 didn’t really acknowledge it much, probably too busy plotting someone’s legal downfall or mourning her Dark Lord boyfriend.

Blair still hadn’t met anybody else since that whole dramatic showdown with Dumbledore and the Aurors a month ago. Mom 2 was keeping him tucked away from the rest of pure-blood society like he was her secret cursed tiara.

But not for long, Blair guessed. She was definitely cooking up some social debut nonsense. Yay, aristocratic wizard racism and forced toddler mingling! he thought.

One excellent discovery Blair made in November, to his absolute delight, was snakes! Specifically, his very cool and mildly concerning ability to understand them. He didn’t really know how snakes operated in general, but he was fairly certain this one wasn’t your standard slithery forest lad.

As the weather got colder, a stunning green snake snuck into their sitting room like it paid rent, and Blair nearly fell off his tiny chair. Not because of the snake, but because he understood him!

“You can talk?!” Blair gasped, only to realize he wasn’t speaking at all, he was hissing. Full-on sibilant nonsense. Oh no. Baby daddy genes are kicking in. Great. I’m a Parselmouth. Blair thought. Another evil trademark unlocked. What’s next, growing up to be bald? This is not looking good for me.

The little green snake got all wiggly with excitement and immediately launched into full snake-office gossip. “Sssso the gnomes are panic-hoarding sunflower seeds, the spiders built a third web ‘just in case,’ the pantry mice are screeching about an early frost, and Kreacher’s socks summoned a sentient mold colony that’s unionizing.”

Blair was in shock, he was outraged, he was invested. “Tell me more!” he hissed with the urgency of a gossipy aunt at brunch. And that’s how he made his first snake friend.

The next day he slithered back with two more mates, and suddenly Blair, a one-year-old baby with zero life experience and excellent cheekbones, was hosting a full-blown Parseltongue tea party in the drawing room like some tiny, bilingual Dr. Dolittle with a Dark Mark on layaway.

No supervision whatsoever. So Blair did what any responsible baby Parselmouth would do and decided to teach his new snake besties how to hiss-sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.'

They were halfway through the second verse when Mom 2 walked in, took one look at her precious heir harmonizing with three garden snakes like a cursed Disney musical, and screamed loud enough to wake the entire wall crew into a collective fit of judgmental muttering.

Once she finally stopped shrieking and banished Blair’s poor new snake choir to Merlin knows where, she looked downright delighted.

“Oh my little Parselmouth! This is marvelous, this is splendid news, you are simply radiant, my little dark lord.” Okay, let's not make that a thing, Blair thought. “You shall save us all from the filthy Mudbloods!” she declared, positively glowing with evil grandma pride. And then she just kept going. And going. And going.

“But if I ever see you bring those wretched snakes inside again, I shall make a soup out of them and feed it to you,” she said with the poise of a woman offering biscuits. Excuse me? You’re going to do what now?! Blair thought. I’m one year old! I don’t even eat solids properly yet and she’s out here planning reptile stew.

“Well, Mommy, you know, I think they were just a little cold,” Blair said, trying to sound helpful and not at all like someone about to defend the civil rights of reptiles.

The look she gave Blair made his soul leave his body for a brief holiday. “No more indoor snakes,” he squeaked. She looked terribly pleased with herself, like she’d just tamed a dragon with a doily.

The next few years were painfully uneventful. Mom 2 had him studying day and night, especially Dark magic, like he was prepping for a midlife crisis at age three.

He was already over it. He barely got to play, his only friend was Kreacher, who mostly muttered and judged him, and she kept stuffing his tiny head with enough blood purist propaganda to start a cult.

He responded the only way he knew how: by dramatically eating his crayons during lessons.

Blair wasn't a good student. At all. He thought Mom 2 should be amazed he could even read at age three, but nooo, she expected him to recite the entire Black family history as if he were applying for a Dark Arts PhD.

He'd met real three-year-olds, they forgot what they ate five minutes ago and thought dirt was a snack. Meanwhile, he was over here being grilled on which cousin disowned whom for marrying a Muggle.

Blair’s snakes still snuck into his room sometimes for their late-night singing sessions, they were surprisingly into it. He thought they'd missed their calling as a Parseltongue choir. He'd even given them names: Nagini Minaj, Snaccarina, and David.

They were Blair's only friends, which was equal parts adorable and tragic. He did his best to hide them from Mom 2 so she wouldn’t turn them into soup, and from Kreacher because the last time he caught them mid-hiss-harmony he passed out cold. Blair was trying to keep Kreacher's dramatic swooning to once a week, thank you very much.

“Kreacher, you useless being, if you faint one more time while caring for Blair, I shall assume you’ve grown far too old and are quite ready to part ways with your head!” Mom 2 shrieked like it was a completely reasonable thing to say before breakfast.

“Mommy, what do you mean?” Blair asked, innocent and full of dread, only to receive the most horrifying explanation about the Black family tradition of chopping off house-elf heads and mounting them like cursed collectibles. Love that for me, he thought.

“Kreacher, blink twice if this is a hostage situation. I swear I’ll find a way to rescue you,” Blair whispered, mirroring a tiny revolutionary.

Mom 2 did not appreciate his heroic spirit and decided Kreacher needed to be punished right in front of him, for his own good! She made him iron his own hands. His hands! That was the exact moment Blair started truly disliking Mom 2. Poor Kreacher.

After she finally left Blair alone, he snuck off to find Kreacher, who was hiding behind the curtains.

Blair scrunched up his face, waved his chubby baby hands, and focused every drop of magic he had left from his emergency cookie stash, and healed his poor little hands. By the time he finished, Kreacher was crying harder than Blair during teething season.

The next day, Kreacher snuck all of Blair’s snake friends into his room without Mom 2 noticing. Absolute legend. Blair was so happy he hugged him really tight. And, yep, there he went. Down like a sack of potatoes. Fainted again.

In August, Mom 2 decided it was time to introduce Blair to some people. Apparently, loads of them were just dying to meet him. Oh, the joy. Because nothing said 'summer fun' quite like a parade of shady pure-blood adults lining up to look at the Dark Lord’s toddler.

Blair stood in front of the mirror, draped in layers of ridiculous fancy robes, looking like a miniature villain from a period drama. “Mommy, I look like I’m about to colonize Narnia,” he groaned.

“Oh darling, you say the most curious things,” she replied with a chuckle, fluffing Blair’s collar. “Now let’s go. And do remember not to do... that with your face.”

That? What that? Blair thought. Oh. Right. My Judgy Gen Alpha face. Just wait till she sees my Gen Z dead-eyed stare. I’ve been practicing.

To his surprise, they apparated straight into a massive mansion, which Blair quickly figured out was Malfoy Manor. Oh wow. It was huge. Like, five-libraries-and-a-curse-in-the-basement huge.

Once the nausea from the apparition wore off and Blair’s soul returned to his body, they stepped inside. “And remember your manners, Blair. These people are simply desperate to meet you. You are our future leader, and it is high time you begin forging the right connections.”

Mother, I’m three. I just want to play Uno and maybe eat some glue. Please, Blair thought.

The inside of the manor was just as beautiful as the outside, and yes, Blair said that out loud to the stunning blonde lady who greeted them. “Oh, what a lovely little gentleman you are!” she exclaimed, clearly charmed.

It took Blair two seconds and a brain cell to realize he’d just complimented Narcissa Malfoy. “Wait, aren’t you my cousin or something?” he asked, trying to piece together the Black family tree, which, let’s be honest, was more of a family circle. But hey, he wasn’t about to call out the inbreeding at his first evil tea party.

“Yes, we are! I am ever so pleased to have another Black boy in the family. Really puts our minds at ease,” Narcissa said with the kind of smile rich people give when they’re about to judge your shoes.

After that, Blair was paraded around like a pureblood show pony and introduced to a whole bunch of other wizard folks, all dressed so fancy he was starting to wonder if he’d accidentally apparated into a wizarding fashion week. He greeted them back.

“Pleasure. Love what you’ve done with your lineage.”

“Oh, your family’s on our tapestry? How bold of them.”

“Pleasure to meet you. I do love a room where family trees overlap so efficiently.”

“Thank you, yes, I inherited the cheekbones and the existential threat.”

Blair got away with most of his cheeky comments, probably because everyone was far too dazzled by the whole 'Dark Lord’s Heir Who Can Speak in Full Sentences at Age Three' thing. They were so busy fawning over his pronunciation that nobody blinked when he called one guy’s monocle 'a shiny eyeball crutch.'

And then Blair was introduced to the one and only Draco Malfoy. Insert internal fanboy scream. Except he wasn’t The Draco Malfoy yet. He was a tiny, soft-spoken fluffball with way too much gel in his hair, clearly trying very hard to impress Blair.

Not a trace of future Pureblood Menace, just a polite toddler blinking at Blair like he held the answers to life, magic, and where house elves go when they vanish mid-sentence.

“Hey, I’m Blair! Your hair’s like a baby unicorn. Love it. Wanna play wizards or scream at portraits?”

And that was it. Draco gave Blair this big, shiny grin like he’d just offered him a Chocolate Frog and a pony, and they ditched the adults like true rebels. Just two overly pampered toddlers making a break for it in silk robes and family expectations.

“My daddy has a wand and he lets me look at it on Tuesdays if I don’t spill juice. Also we have a bunch of books that will scream at you if you open them let me show you."

“Well, I have a pet snake, but he’s a secret,” Blair whispered, all dramatic.

And so it went on, Blair and Draco played wizards until their robes were crooked and Blair’s crown (a doily from the tea tray) fell off twice. Blair was just so happy to finally have a friend his age. He didn’t think they’d still be friends in the future once Draco went full ferret supremacist, but for now? Absolute blast.

In the middle of the playdate, Blair and Draco got summoned to the table by the parental overlords. Draco, bless his little pure-blooded heart, managed to trip over absolutely nothing and took a glass vase down with him in the most dramatic swan dive Blair had ever seen.

Blair rushed over like the tiny hero he was, helped him up, and made sure he didn’t get his fancy robes shredded by any of the sparkly murder shards.

Well, it turned out the glass wasn’t the real disaster, no. The true catastrophe arrived in the form of one furious Lucius Malfoy, storming in like a hurricane and shouting at poor Draco for being a disgrace in front of the future Dark Lord. Oh brilliant, Mom made that a thing, didn’t she? Bloody brilliant. Dammit, Blair thought.

Draco was in tears, and Blair’s stomach turned. With a little swish of his chubby toddler hand, he focused his magic and repaired the vase right there, earning a chorus of shocked gasps.

Then Blair plopped himself in front of Draco like a pint-sized bodyguard and, with the kind of sass no three-year-old should legally possess, declared, “No harm done. But if yelling helps you feel powerful, I’ll pretend to be impressed.”

That shut him up real quick. Narcissa leapt to her husband’s side like an HR rep at a Coldplay concert, all damage control. Lucius cleared his throat and did this awkward little bow. “Your talents are…remarkable, Lord Black.” Yeah, choke on it, peasant.

Then he turned to poor Draco with narrowed eyes. “You will apologies. And you will behave.” Wow. Peak parenting from a man whose hairline is clinging to generational trauma.

Draco mumbled an apology, looking absolutely wrecked. When Blair saw his little sad face, he leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry, I can set the table on fire, that’ll distract everyone from the vase.” Draco went white as a sheet. “Please don’t,” he begged, clutching his tiny nonexistent pearls.

“Well done, darling. Do let poor Mr. Malfoy breathe, it’s frightfully rude to outshine adults before dessert,” Mom 2 said, and Blair couldn’t help the smug little sparkle of pride in his chest. What can I say? I’m cute, sassy, and mildly terrifying, deal with it, he thought.

She made Blair put on a little magic show, of course. First came the sparkles, then the glowing lights, and finally the grand finale, three fireballs spinning over his head like he was a particularly dramatic chandelier. Everyone looked terribly pleased and just the right amount of terrified. Excellent.

For two more years, Blair kept studying and suffering in silence under Mom 2's daily parade of pureblood nonsense. He was frustrated, exhausted, and growing more miserable by the day. She was awful, and worse, she expected him to be just as awful. But all he wanted was to play Exploding Snap with Draco and sing duets with his snakes in peace.

A few months after Blair turned five, Mom 2 started coughing like she was trying to exorcise a demon through her lungs. Kreacher and Blair brewed every potion in the dusty family cookbook, and Blair tried to heal her every day with all the magic he could squeeze out of his tiny body, but nothing worked.

His spells helped for a bit, sure, but the infection was spreading faster than a corridor rumor.

And that's how, in 1985, Blair found himself one morning poking a very still, very not-waking-up Mom 2. Everything after that was a blur.

Aurors showed up, Ministry officials poured in like nosy pigeons, and someone started planning a funeral while Blair just... stopped. He stopped talking, stopped listening, stopped everything except crying. A lot. Even if she was horrible, she was still his Mom for five years.

And when some poor soul asked how he was doing, Blair sniffled dramatically and said, “You drink to keep yourself hydrated. I drink to have fuel for my tears. We are not the same.”

The funeral was weird. Everyone cried very politely, except Blair, who was sobbing into Kreacher’s tea towel like it was designer grief couture. After that, nobody really asked what he wanted. Figures.

The Ministry wanted to place Blair in a 'progressive, inclusive, non-blood-purist environment.'

A fancy way of saying, 'let’s hide the baby Death Eater in a cottage full of Muggles and hope for the best.' Meanwhile, the Black relatives were arguing over whose cursed tapestry he belonged on, like he was a limited-edition Pokémon.

A compromise was made. Andromeda Tonks. She was a Black once, before the whole marrying-a-Muggle-born scandal got her scorched off the family tree. Apparently, she was the Ministry’s idea of a middle-ground solution.

Black roots, Muggle-born husband, half-blood kid—a lovely diversity sampler platter. Except for one tiny hiccup: Andromeda absolutely did not want to take Blair in. The look on her face when they told her? Pure horror. Like someone had slipped a live Boggart into her cereal and it spelled out 'good morning' in Parseltongue.

Dumbledore and the Ministry managed to guilt her into it.

That's how Blair found himself coming home with her after the funeral, crawling under the extremely Muggle kitchen table, and bawling his eyes out like the world's most tragic rescue pet.

And as Blair wept into the linoleum, surrounded by beige wallpaper and emotional damage, he realized one thing with absolute certainty: this was not the Dark Lord Junior origin story Mom 2 had in mind.

Chapter Text

Logically, Blair knew staying under the table forever was impossible. Emotionally, Blair was quite certain he could pull it off. Andromeda had gone to fetch his stuff from Grimmauld Place, leaving him alone with a very nervous Ted Tonks, who looked one tea spill away from joining Blair on the floor.

Ted cleared his throat. "Blair, you should drink some water." Blair bobbed his head. "Yeah, good call, need fresh tear fuel," he muttered, scooting out from under the table. Ted winced at the joke yet still handed over a glass.

“Interesting thing to say, but I suppose you’re quite right, whatever gets you to drink something,” the poor man said, bless his soul. “Where did you hear the term fuel? I’d imagine that Walburga-” He cut himself off and winced.

“Oh, Kricker uses it all the time for the fire or something,” Blair lied with the confidence of a goblin banker on payday, even though their fireplace ran on eldritch nonsense and spite. He used to get away with this level of cheek at Grimmauld Place, Mom 2 accepted it, or at least didn’t hex him.

But Ted's Muggle-born and they're deep in the heart of Muggle Little Whinging, so 90% of Blair's top-tier material couldn't be used under Ted's knowing nose.

He couldn't blame the whole wall crew or Kreacher anymore, it wouldn't make sense. "Kricker?" Ted asked, already regretting it.

"Oh, his real name's Kreacher. He's our house-elf. Well, was. He's not dead or anything! Just, you know, not our house anymore," Blair explained, then promptly made himself cry again, because emotional whiplash is his favorite party trick.

“How about something stronger than water?” Excuse me, Ted, I’m five. “I’ll bring you some orange juice.” Oh, false alarm, cancel the owl to child services. “Yes please! I’ve never had orange juice.” Well, not in this universe.

Ted looked as if Blair had just told him he was raised in a dungeon, which, to be fair, was only slightly untrue. "Mom didn't really want me to have any sugar," Blair explained. Ted nodded, very serious. "We'll fix that." Bless him. Revolutionary spirit right there.

"And Blair?" Ted asked, and Blair peeked up at him with a suspicious garden gnome look. "It's still your house. I don't think you want to hear all the inheritance mumbo jumbo right now, we'll give you the documents when you're older. But it is very much still your house. If you want to, you could live there when you grow up," Ted promised, sounding way too optimistic for someone suggesting Blair voluntarily return to the haunted taxidermy museum he used to call home.

"Umm, I think I'm good. That house is pretty creepy. He wants to get a loft in London!" Blair beamed, the very image of a five-year-old with big city dreams, zero income, and the architectural taste of a retired art critic.

Ted looked properly stunned but didn't say anything. "Not now, of course, when I'm big," Blair added, because legal property ownership at his age was apparently frowned upon. "No no, I got that," Ted said, still looking baffled.

“Just didn’t expect you to want something so... Muggle. You do know what Muggles are, right? Some people, most people, don’t have magic, and we call them Muggles.” He gave Blair the full Magic for Toddlers TED Talk. “Most of London’s Muggle, no wizards or witches.”

Wow, how bad do they think his education is? Mom 2 had to compare the 'amazing' pure-bloods to something. “Oh, I know what Muggles are,” Blair told him, trying not to sound offended on behalf of his brain cells. “But it’d still be cool living in London, right? I can always connect my floo to the wizarding world."

“That is very true and exactly like how we live here, our floo is also connected to some wizarding places,” he said, all cheerful. “Oh, cool,” Blair said, flashing his best not-plotting-anything smile. The tears paused for the time we were talking.

Ted was cool, he decided. He brought him juice, didn't scream when he mentioned Kreacher, and so far, hadn't tried to exorcise him. 10/10.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll need to sleep on the sofa for a while, we’re still preparing the room for you,” he apologized, with a little guilt-flavor. “Oh, that’s fine. The sofa looks really comfy,” Blair said, as the polite evil overlord in disguise he is. Silently plotting his throw pillow empire.

“Would you like to come out from under that table and come sit with me here? Give the sofa a test drive?” he asked with the warmest grin ever manufactured. “Sneaky,” Blair said, narrowing his eyes as if he were a suspicious cat.

“But yes. I can’t feel my bottom anymore and the floor’s cold. Also, orange juice should be drunk with dignity, not while crouched like a feral goblin under furniture.”

That made Ted laugh really loud, he sounded like a tea kettle having a crisis. Nobody ever laughed at his jokes before, they usually just ignored them and prayed his humor would evaporate.

But this? This was glorious. He seems like a dad-jokes type of person, and Blair, a small chaos goblin with tragic evil eyeliner energy, fully approve.

They sat in silence on the sofa for a bit, and then boom, emotions ambushed Blair again and he started crying like a banshee with a stubbed toe. “Sorry for crying. I’ll get over it, I just need to be dramatic first,” Blair promised, wiping his face.

"You don't need to get over it. Cry as much as you need," Ted said, all soft and full of dad-level comfort. Oh no. His poor cold future villain heart. "Umm... thanks," Blair mumbled, sniffling.

“This is weird,” Blair told him. “Tell me about it,” he laughs. “You’re nothing like what I expected,” he said, squinting at Blair as if he was a very polite bomb. “In a good way?” Blair asked, doing his best innocent orphan face.

“Indeed,” Ted said, then ruffled Blair's hair. Merlin’s pants, I forgot how normal people act around someone they love, or at least don’t want to exorcise. So Blair blushed and sipped his orange juice like it was fine wine and he was pretending not to emotionally combust on the inside.

“We have a daughter, did you know? She’s at Hogwarts right now, you just missed her during the winter holidays,” he said, all proud and glowy. “Oh, umm… nice?” Blair replied, not sure if this was small talk or a trap, until it hit him, Tonks ! As in Nymphadora! Oh Merlin, they are going to cause so much chaos together.

“What’s her name?” Blair asked, already mentally preparing matching disguises and prank blueprints.

“Legally? Nymphadora, but she doesn’t like it much. You might get away with Dora. I wouldn’t risk it though. She mostly goes by Tonks,” Ted said, with the caution of a man who’s been hexed before breakfast to many times before about that very same subject.

“But you’re all Tonks, I’ll get confused,” Blair pouted in a tiny bureaucrat in training pout, and Ted laughed. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. You can call me Ted and Andromeda Andy, and that leaves just one Tonks to rule them all.”

“Well, sounds reasonable enough. Nymphy is out of the question?” Blair asked, sweet and innocent, not naming a future battle plan at all. “You can try,” Ted chuckled, “but please call me when you do, I want to see her face.”

“Oh, I most certainly will. Does she like Uno?” he asked, finally getting to the real business at hand.

“I don’t trust anyone who dislikes Uno,” Ted said with the gravity of a man who’s lost a family to Draw Fours. Blair nodded solemnly. “How do you know Uno?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

Oh, this is going to be tricky. Blair's an expert in Muggle stuff, he was a Muggle, after all, but now he was five, suspiciously educated, and living in a wizard household. Time to lie creatively.

“It’s a secret, so if I tell you, you have to promise to keep it,” Blair said, dead serious. Ted nodded, doing his best Serious Adult Face.

“I have an older brother,” Blair whispered. “Mom said he’s a-well, not a nice word, I think. A blood-traitor. He had a bunch of stuff in his room, and I used to sneak in there a lot.” he explained with great dignity and a criminal mastermind mindset. Ted nodded again, clearly trying not to laugh or call the Ministry.

"Sorry about saying that word, I gathered it's not nice." Ted nods.

"It isn't, I would appreciate it if you could never use it again, not in front of us or any of the people you'll meet in the future. Why do you think it's bad thought? I believe you were taught something different."

Blair blushed and nodded. "Well, first of all Mom taught it to me, and she had a super-villain vibes. And second of all, well, it does have the word traitor in it." Blair said and made Ted laugh.

"Such a vocabulary on you," Ted said, and for the next few minutes, Blair got the bad wizard terminology he shouldn't ever use and why lecture.

It was practically censoring all of Mom 2's greetings to anyone who wasn't a pure-blood. They should make it into a kid's book. He would definitely buy that.

"Why wasn't my brother at mom's funeral? The one she called the bad word. I know they didn't get along, but I've never even met him. I expected to, you know, at the funeral," Blair told Ted, full of innocent suspicion, even though he already knew exactly where his dear brother was staying now.

“You’re talking about Sirius, right? Because Regulus is, well,” Ted began, looking all awkward. "Yeah, I know, I was talking about Sirius," Blair said quickly, all wide eyes and innocence. Being five and nosy was the perfect excuse for knowing way too much. He had decided to weaponize it.

“Well, he got arrested right when the war ended. He’s awaiting trial in Azkaban, it’s our wizard jail. They say he betrayed the side that was fighting the bad man and got a lot of people hurt.” Ted said it all very gently, with enough censorship to qualify for a toddler-friendly bedtime story. Wow. He really said 'bad man' like this was a fairy tale and not the Voldemort Show.

Oh, poor Sirius. Blair knew he was five, but someone had to make sure he actually got a trial. Maybe if he threw enough tantrums in the right direction, he could keep him out of Azkaban. Or at least get him a less depressing cell.

"Do you think he did all those bad things?"

“I don’t know, really. Andy loves him ,says he never would’ve done that on purpose. But we’ll have to wait for the trial,” Ted said, looking like he wished hugs could solve legal injustice.

“Can we make sure he has the lawyer people? So he can tell what really happened?” Blair asked, all soft and wobbly. “Even if he is a bad person, I still want to help somehow…” he confessed, layering on the wide-eyed child innocence like icing on a guilt cake, hoping Ted would read it as compassion and not premeditated jail break.

“We can do that,” Ted promised, and suddenly Blair was hit with this weird, fuzzy feeling in his chest. Is this what being heard feels like? Wild. First time in any of his lives, honestly. So Blair launched himself at Ted in a full-on dramatic hug. “Thanks!” Blair chirped, clinging like a needy koala with emotional damage.

He looked a bit uncomfortable hugging a walking snot fountain, but he hugged Blair back anyway, bless his soul. That’s how Andy found us, mid-cuddle on the sofa, Blair sniffly and smug, Ted resigned and slightly damp.

She blinked in surprise, and Ted just shrugged like, this is my life now, while she walked in with a small bag and suspiciously soft eyes.

“Hey there, Blair. I’m happy to see you up on the sofa, I was starting to think we’d need to cushion the floor under the table,” she joked, and Blair laughed, because honestly? That is something he'd absolutely do. Give him a pillow and emotional damage and he'll build a fort.

“Ted said I should test the sofa. I can confirm it meets Ministry-approved comfort standards,” Blair declared, very official.

“Good. I grabbed most of the stuff I thought was important from your house, we can always go back for more,” Andy said, calm and capable.

Blair nodded like a very responsible adult-child hybrid, then marched to the sink and washed his orange juice glass like a dignified citizen, balancing on his tiptoes and raw determination.

Both Andy and Ted looked at him weird, but said nothing, wise choice. Andy just smiled, then started pulling a bunch of stuff out of the bag.

It was all miniature versions of Blair's things. He guessed she had used a shrinking charm, which was brilliant and terrifying. Magic was awesome. He absolutely should not be trusted with it.

“Let’s go upstairs and show you your room. We can organize everything just how you’d like, and then start reversing the shrinking charm,” Andy said, cheerful, like this was a perfectly normal Sunday and not a rehoming of the Dark Lord’s heir with a juice addiction in development.

“Okay, show the way,” Blair said and followed them up the stairs like a very important wizard who absolutely didn’t need to hold the railing with both hands.

There wasn’t much to do, they arranged the tiny furniture in what Blair decided was aesthetic chaos. “It’ll take me a few days to reverse all the charms, but it should be ready by Sunday,” Andy promised.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Blair said, then focused on the warm, fizzy magic inside him and willed the furniture to grow. Instantly, everything popped back to its original size, a very stylish explosion. The room looked great, honestly.

Blair grinned to himself, then glanced back at Ted and Andy, who were both staring, mouths open.

“So yeah, I have this thing where I do weird magic based on intent mostly,” Blair said quickly, jazz hands optional. “I do need spells for, like, complex stuff! But mostly it’s… this. Oh, and I kinda don’t need a wand? I think? Maybe just for really hard spells…” he rambled, hoping they’d focus more on the adorable and less on the terrifying implications.

“That’s really… something,” said Ted, still looking like he’d seen a Kneazle do taxes. Blair rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the professional analysis," Blair muttered, very mature for someone standing in a room they just un-shrunk with their brain.

“Blair, sweetheart, you know you can’t do magic outside the house, right? Or if I ask you not to do it when we have guests over?” Andy said gently, as if she was explaining manners to a feral pixie. “Think you can manage that?” Blair nodded with the solemn dignity of someone who absolutely would not follow that rule unless bribed.

“Yeah! I’ve got really good control! And I definitely know not to show magic to Muggles or do magic outside! Orange juice helps my control,” Blair added, batting his eyelashes. A tiny menace in disguise. Ted rolled his eyes. "You'll have your orange juice supplies, don't worry."

"Okay!" Then he hit them with his most iconic puppy eyes, the deluxe, limited-edition, emotionally weaponized version. They both relaxed. Success. Manipulation through adorableness: undefeated, untouchable, unstoppable.

“Thank you for getting my stuff and preparing a room for me. I know you didn’t really want to take me-” Blair started, but Andy cut me off.

“It was never that!” Andy said, full Mom mode activated. “We just weren’t sure we’d be a good fit for you, that’s all. But I don’t regret it for a single minute, alright, Sweetness? And you’re very welcome. You can decorate however you like, and since you’re clearly gifted at unshrinking things, how about you start with your robes, okay?”

Blair nodded, feeling emotional. “Okay,” he sniffed, all watery-eyed rescue kitten. Andy and Ted melted on the spot. The tears were unplanned.

“But also,” Blair said, voice all wobbly, “I really, really hate those robes,” he sniffled between sobs, and saw Ted trying not to laugh at how ridiculous he was begin.

“We’ll get you new ones then,” Andy said kindly, bless her.

“Can I get Muggle clothes like you?” he asked, unleashing the full force of his weaponized puppy eyes. Please, Blair missed jeans like they’re a long-lost Uno pack.

“Of course,” Ted said, looking about forty percent confused and sixty percent weirdly delighted, as if he’d just been invited to a very wholesome fashion revolution.

“I always thought Muggles had better fashion sense,” Blair whispered, like he was revealing ancient forbidden knowledge. Ted absolutely lost it, laughing so hard he wheezed, while Andy tried to hold it together like a proper adult, but her mouth was doing that dangerous twitchy thing.

“We’ll get you some,” she promised again, and Blair beamed like he hadn’t just started a fashion coup. “Can we change the wall colors? Oh! Can I get a LEGO set? But Uno is a priority,” he added, very seriously. Andy chuckled, probably realizing she’d adopted a chaos gremlin.

“You can do whatever you want in the room as long as you keep it clean. We’ll grab some paint when we get you some clothes. What color would you like, Sweetness?” Andy asked. Oh, that’s easy!

“Pink, please!” Blair said. “Oh, and also-” he raised his hand, focused, and the walls shifted into a beautiful, not-too-overwhelming shade of pink. “No paint needed,” Blair added, just a little smug. Okay, maybe a lot smug.

“Wow, really impressive, Blair!” Ted said. “Why pink though? Seems a little-” Andy hit him with a look and a swift elbow. “Ouch! What was th- okay, okay!” They had one of those silent parental telepathy moments that made me question whether they were secretly Legilimens. Terrifying. Effective. Blair respected it.

“Pink is my favorite color,” he told them, matter-of-fact, like any self-respecting tiny wizard should. Yeah, yeah, Blair gets it- it’s the 80s, boys are supposed to like blue and trucks and emotionally repress themselves or whatever.

Luckily, Ted and Andy seemed chill enough, because Blair, the adorable chaos gremlin that he is, like a mix of ‘girly’ and ‘boy’ stuff and always have. Even back in his first life. But hey, 2025 Canada didn’t even blink at that.

“I just like what I like- clothes, toys, whatever. Don’t really care if they’re ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys,’” Blair told them, knowing full well this wouldn’t be the last time he'd have to explain himself. “I don’t get why it’s weird for some people. Even wizards and witches sometimes find it odd, but we wear robes all the time!”

Andy gave him a look full of soft Mom Energy. “It’s fine, Sweetness. Wear and play with whatever you like, it doesn’t matter to us. Tonks, our daughter, she’s a lot like you that way. And we’re more than happy to go along with it, as long as it makes you happy too.” She paused. “And the house isn’t on fire.” Reasonable.

Okay wow, total win with this family. Blair thought he might actually like it here, which was weird and mildly suspicious, but mostly nice.

“Umm, thanks. Good to know. And likewise, of course,” he said with his best mysterious politeness. Andy gave him a weird look. “What do you mean, Sweetness?” Oh no. Blair forgot normal children don’t usually imply conditional acceptance of their guardians.

“Oh, just that you can be yourselves around me and all. If I don’t get some of the muggle stuff, I’ll ask,” Blair explained smoothly. Which is generous of him, really, because 80s appliances? Absolutely not in my skillset. He's powerful, not microwave literate.

“Hard to imagine you’re a Black,” Andy laughed. Blair laughed too. “Well, you’re a Black too! And look at us, we’re the cool Blacks,” he declared, officially rebranding the family name.

“That we are,” she said good-naturedly, as if she hadn’t just been officially recruited into his rebranded chaos dynasty. She'll find out soon enough.

And that was it. Blair started to settle in, and after a few days, the ache in his heart over Mom 2 started to fade, bit by bit. He organized his room and decorated it with a bunch of Muggle books, random trinkets, and of course, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Icons. Warriors. Role models. And beautifully green.

Andy and Ted were still a little wary around him, like he might explode or summon a demon, but they were warming up. They had breakfast and dinner together every day. Andy would head off to work, he had no clue what she actually does, and Ted stayed home brewing a bunch of potions. This absolutely fascinated Blair, and he immediately demanded full spectator rights.

Apparently, Ted's a Potion Master who works from home, brews up magical stuff in the garage like it’s no big deal, then sells it through some potion dealer in Diagon Alley. Honestly? Iconic. Blair respected the hustle. He's also licensed and all.

So while Blair was really bad at anything academic (don’t ask him to read a book, he will cry), he loved potions, as long as he could do them or watch them and not read about them. It was like baking, but with more explosions and fewer cupcakes. Very calming. Very him.

Blair was given a bunch of light house chores, and he followed them to a T, very responsible, very adult. Even if he did set the carpet on fire that one time. It was one time! And he repaired it immediately, thank you very much, while Ted just stood there looking horrified.

Blair really enjoyed spending time with Ted. Ted was so calm and nice, like a human cup of tea, but if someone made him laugh? Oh, it was over.

One time Ted laughed so hard at one of their stupid magical dad jokes that Blair genuinely thought he was going to suffocate. Blair certainly hadn’t anticipated planning his first murder, not that he’d planned any murder, mind you. Swear.

"Why did I get kicked out of the potions lab?"
"Because I couldn’t stop stirring up trouble!"

Then Ted’s snot flew straight into the potion, ruining the entire batch. Blair and Ted doubled over, laughing so hard they could barely breathe.

Andy found them like that, wheezing, clutching their stomachs, surrounded by potion scraps. “I’m not going to survive once Dora comes back for the summer,” she muttered, surveying the carnage of the Snifflebrew Disaster of the Week, then left them to salvage what they could.

Several weeks passed, and then Kreacher made an appearance on a Sunday morning. “Kricker!” Blair screamed, absolutely thrilled, and tackled him in a hug.

Blair exclaimed, “How are you? Are you okay alone there? You should come eat with us so you won’t get lonely!” He clung to Kreacher, then fixed Andy with his full‑powered puppy‑dog eyes, silently pleading for his emotionally supportive house-elf friend to stay for brunch.

“Oh, young master, I am quite fine. I am keeping the house clean for your return,” he said, all polite and official, bowing as if Blair were about to knight him with a soup spoon. Blair huffed, “Oh, Kricker, there’s no need. Just come and stay here. If I ever go back to Grimmauld Place, we’ll clean it together.”

Kreacher replied, “I can’t, Master. I am tied to that house and now to your magic. If you ask it, I’ll come. But otherwise, I’ll tend to the house,” he said, speaking formally, like a melodramatic butler in a haunted opera. Blair just rolled his eyes, of course he was. Everything in his life came with fine print.

“Okay, but you’ll come visit from time to time,” Blair told him in his best Very Serious Lord Voice. Kreacher just nodded, as if swearing a sacred oath.

“Andy, Ted, this is Kricker! Well, Kreacher. Only I can call him Kricker,” Blair said with a proud little smile.

“You could say my name correctly this entire time?!” Kreacher asked, utterly outraged. “Well of course,” Blair replied with a chuckle. “I just thought Kricker was cuter. Branding, you know?”

Ted offered a warm smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said politely. “You’re more than welcome to join us for meals anytime.” His tone was kind, as though inviting a centuries‑old, grumpy elf to brunch was just part of their usual Sunday routine.

Kreacher shook his head, scandalized. “I will not sit at the same table as my master, oh no. Kreacher isn’t a fallen elf!” he huffed, deeply offended in that ancient-servant way only he could manage.

Blair chuckled. “It doesn’t matter, Kricker, you’re still invited. Come sit on the sofa,” he said, delighted by his own cunning. Loophole activated, sofa diplomacy for the win.

“Being in a house of a Mudbl-” Kreacher began, until Blair lunged forward and clamped a hand over the elf’s mouth. Blair said quickly, “Oh, you know how house‑elves are.” He added very sincerely, “Don’t be mad, Ted. Kricker just doesn’t know any better. Please don’t cut his head off.”

Ted looked pale. “I would never!” he said, utterly horrified.

“Good, good. So, what brings you here, Kricker?” Blair asked, very casually, in his best let’s-ignore-the-almost-slur voice.

“Oh, Master Blair, your snake insisted on coming to you. Wouldn’t stop hissing, very loud,” Kreacher said, and then pulled out the beautiful David from Merlin knows where.

“David!” Blair screamed, scooping up the snake and cuddling him right up to his face. The little tongue gave his cheek a tiny kiss, and he nearly cried from joy.

“Ssssss oh Blair, we missed you so much! Nagini Minaj, and Snaccarina wanted to come too, but they just rented a nest together and I’m not about to third-wheel that mess. I missed you so much,” he hissed, wrapping around me.

“I missed you too, David!” Blair hissed back, full emotional reunion mode. Then he looked up at Andy and Ted, who were watching with very patient horror. “Oh, so yeah… I kinda talk to snakes,” he admitted nervously, clutching David while mentally preparing to explain Snaccarina and Nagini Minaj next. Snake gossip is top tier.

Ted managed to sound calm as he said, “Oh, that’s… really unique! And absolutely fine,” even though he was clearly processing the sight of his five‑year‑old ward cradling a snake and casually speaking Parseltongue before breakfast.

“You named your snake David?” Andy asked, eyebrows doing gymnastics.

“Oh yeah, after Bowie,” Blair explained proudly.

“What?” both Ted and Andy asked in unison.

“David Bowie,” Blair said, clearly. “It’s an inside joke with David, he’s got this super normal name, but it’s secretly after someone ridiculously cool. Naming him Bowie would’ve been too obvious. He prefers the mystery.” Blair smiled, very pleased with his cleverness. David flicked his tongue in agreement.

Andy shook her head. “Where did you learn about David Bowie?” she asked, curious. Ted cast her a quick look and answered for Blair in a low voice, “Sirius’s old room,” then subtly signaled for her to drop it before Blair turned all emotional again. And honestly, that was fair, he was one sad memory away from launching into a full‑on tragic monologue.

“Right!” Blair said quickly, then turned back to David. “Wait, Nagini Minaj and Snaccarina are together?! Wow, good for them.” David nodded, very sagely, as if snake dating updates were the most serious business.

“Dad, can we please keep David here? He’s such a sweetie, loves to sing, pleaaase,” Blair begged, clinging to Ted’s arm, knowing he's the weaker link.

Andy and Ted looked really shocked, and Blair couldn’t figure out why. “He’s just a sweet little garden snake, promise I can take care of him,” he said, cradling David protectively. “Just don’t turn him into soup or anything!”

“Why would we- oh… um, Walburga?” Andy asked, and Blair nodded solemnly.

“We promise not to turn David into soup,” she said gently. “He can stay, if he’s okay with living in a glass cage. But you’ll have to take care of him, alright?"

“Deal,” Blair said, already planning David’s interior décor. Velvet. Fairy lights. A tiny disco ball.

“I promise I will,” he told them, all noble and responsible. And that’s how he got full custody of David. They were both very happy to continue their hissing duets and musical numbers, Parseltongue edition.

Only later that night did Blair realize he’d accidentally called Ted 'Dad,' and he immediately wanted to bury himself under the bed and never return. Ahhh, there he was, managing to second‑hand embarrass himself. What a gift. Truly, an art form.

He decided on the spot that they would all pretend it didn’t happen. Full incognito. National secret level.

They went and got a bunch of things for David the next day, and that was that. Ted didn’t bring up the whole 'Dad' incident, thank Merlin and every goblin in Gringotts.

David seemed more than happy with his new home, so Blair didn’t feel too bad about putting him in a glass cage. “Are you kidding me?? Free rent, free food, I haven’t had that since I was a hatchling. Really nice,” he promised him, lounging on his little heat rock like he was on holiday in the tropics.

“Won’t you get lonely, David? Don’t you want, you know, a snake lady-"

David gave him a flat look. “I’m more than fine, thanks. Snaccarina broke my heart not long ago, and I’m not ready to put myself out there again.”

Fair. Romantic trauma knows no species.

Wait, what?? David had a crush on Snaccarina and she chose Nagini Minaj instead? Brutal. Cold-blooded in every sense. “I’m sorry, David. But now we’ve got all the time in the world to chill and hiss out bangers. Who needs them anyway, right?” David nodded his little head in agreement. Sweet guy. Heartbroken, but healing.

Time passed fast, and Blair genuinely enjoyed his new routine. Dad stayed home with him, they brewed potions in the morning (mostly without explosions), had lunch, and then Dad homeschooled him on a bunch of stuff. Surprisingly, he didn’t even hate it. Probably the potions. Definitely the snacks.

Because Blair already knew how to read and write, Dad thought he was some kind of prodigy. Blair quickly made Dad believe it was all thanks to Mom 2 stressing him out with intense early learning.

Gotta manage expectations, right? The truth was, he only knew the basics because he’d already mastered them in another life. Beyond that, his brain was average at best, sparkly and full of snake gossip, but otherwise perfectly ordinary.

Blair was really good at anything practical, so Dad and Mom started putting more effort into giving him proper book knowledge, stuff they said was “appropriate for a five‑year‑old.”

He tried his best with it, he really did… but he made sure to voice his protest every single time. Loudly. With sighs that could shatter glass.

“Well, I don’t remember the exact reaction between crushed lacewing flies and leeches, but blue goes with grey to make the bubbles, it’s common sense!” He'd tell Dad, exasperated, as if potion logic was a universal truth and not a chaotic mess of magical soup science.

And yeah, Blair gave in and started calling them Mom and Dad after a few months. Their fault for being so disgustingly nice! He tried to keep his cool, he really did, but he emotes a lot, okay? Sue him.

They were really touched and more then okay with it.

“You are somehow arriving at the correct conclusion using the worst logic possible,” Dad laughed, but still let him handle the blue stuff, apparently Valerian Root. Blair loved doing all the cutting and prepping, and Dad said he was getting really good at it. He chose to believe this made him a potion prodigy and not just a glorified magical salad chopper.

“I agree to study this and only this on a strictly non-action level because it’s fun,” Blair declared in his poshest voice, just to make Dad laugh.

“Good, Blair! You’ve got a real talent for it. Keep it up and you’ll be a great Potions Master in no time!” he said, all proud and sparkly-eyed.

“I want to be a Healer though!” Blair protested, arms crossed for extra flair. Dad looked a bit surprised, then smiled.

“An honorable and difficult job,” he said warmly. “Good thing it goes hand in hand with potions.” He winked.

Huh. Blair guessed he had a point. He smiled so hard his face almost fell off.

“Okay, so only this. I will read only about this. Do not force math on me .”And that was it, Blair lost Dad completely to his wheezing laughter. Mission accomplished.

Summer came quickly, and before Blair knew it, they were portkeying to King’s Cross to pick up Dora. Blair waited at the platform practically buzzing with excitement, eyes locked on the barrier like it owed him money. “Did you tell her about me? Did you tell her how awesome and fun I am?” Blair asked, nearly bouncing out of his shoes. Contained chaos, thy name is Blair.

Andy laughed. “She knows we took you in, the cool and fun part, you’ll have to show her yourself.” Challenge accepted. Blair nodded solemnly, already planning an entrance, possibly with glitter and maybe a choreographed snake number. David was on board.

And there she was, pink hair, suspicious eyes, straight off the train. Dragging her trunk like a warrior returning from battle. She waved off her friends and then launched herself full-speed into her parents’ arms, nearly knocking Dad over as he squeezed her tight.

“Oh, we missed you so much,” he said, getting all sappy while Blair stood nearby, vibrating with excitement like a glittery magical chihuahua waiting to be noticed.

“Nymphy!” Blair hollered like a tiny drama queen summoning her court, fully committed to stealing the spotlight. She turned, blinking at him in surprise, and he struck a pose. “Love the hair,” Blair declared with all the flair of a glitter-drenched peacock. “Pink is my absolute favorite, obviously.”

Her face did a full theatrical performance, first scandalized by the unauthorized nickname, then personally offended by the commentary, and finally giving a little nod of approval at his excellent taste in favorite colors.

"Who put you up to calling me that?" she asked, squinting at him with suspicion. "He did it," Blair said, pointing at Dad, who looked absolutely betrayed.

"I did not! He's lying!" Dad yelped and dove behind Mom for protection. Blair cackled and scurried to hide behind her too, because clearly, she was now Switzerland in this escalating war.

"Oh, you will not use me as a meat shield!" she yelled, and the three of them bolted for the portkey like fugitives. By the time they reached it, Blair was purple from laughing so hard he forgot how to breathe and started doing his impression of a dying puffskein.

Dad had to blow on his face to reboot, and everyone looked mildly horrified from him almost dying, but Blair was in full tear-mode, wheezing with joy. So was Nymphy, menace united.

“Oh, I think we could get along,” she said, grinning at him like they were about to commit mild arson together. They probably would. “I’ll show you how to make fireworks at home," she promised.

“YAY! And I’ll show you my pet snake, David. He’s healing from a devastating heartbreak, but he’s super chill about it.”

"David?" She asked as confused as Mom and Dad were.

“After Bowie,” he announce proudly, chest puffed like a smug pygmy puff. “Oh, this is going to be the best summer ever,” she says, eyes sparkling with evil intent.

She changed her hair to match his for the rest of the ride, and they looked so much like siblings his little heart did a full triple flip.

Chapter Text

That summer was, like, the best summer ever for Blair, no question. It was also when his Mom, Andy Tonks, started seeing a mind healer. Dad just huffed more potion steam and whispered calming words to his teacup. Reasonable.

"Okay, but you have to change my wallpaper too! I want the walls to be glittery black and a picture of hot guys with abs," Nymphy demanded, clearly taking interior design very seriously. So Blair rolled his eyes, summoned every sparkle in the known universe, and did it perfectly because obviously Blair could.

"Oh my god this is so cool!" she screamed, jumping around. And yes, he was allowed to call her Nymphy, no one else, just him. By universal law and probably blood pact.

"Blair Orion Black-Tonks!" Mom shouted from downstairs. "Come down right now!" Uh-oh. Full name alert. That was never a good sign.

Blair and Nymphy slowly poked their heads out of her room, clearly debating if fleeing to Albania was a valid option, and that’s when he saw it, the entire house was now coated in shimmering black glitter. Oops.

"No way!" Nymphy gasped, eyes wide, because it wasn’t just the color, the entire house was now plastered with posters of hot guys with abs, flexing on every wall like a wizard gym catalogue.

Blair just stared, heart sinking faster than a dropped cauldron. "I'm so dead," he muttered, swallowing hard.

In the end he changed everything back easily, except for Nymphy’s room, which remained a shrine to glitter and questionable taste. "This is inappropriate! You're five, those kind of pictures will not be hanging on the walls!"

Mom scolded, giving him a full lecture with hand gestures and disappointed parent eyes, but Blair just nodded innocently while mentally swearing on his future dark army he’d never snitch on Nymphy.

"Oh, and I know very well it was your request, young lady!" Mom shouted in full caps lock, while Nymphy grinned like a pixie with a stolen wand. "So if the guys aren't appropriate, could Blair just change it to hot girls in bikinis on motorcycles? That works too."

A spatula came flying their way. "Absolutely not!" Mom snapped.

Dad came out from his potion lab only at the evening just because he had to cook dinner. Looking properly mortified, clearly haunted by past spatula-related trauma and wisely refusing to get involved.

"Thanks for not ratting me out," Nymphy whispered. "I would never!" he promised, placing a hand over his heart. "I would never betray you like that, this I vow in the presence of the juice gods." Nymphy snorted, and they laughed nonstop for fifteen minutes straight.

Because he was five, he wasn’t allowed to go places alone, which meant Nymphy usually took him to nearby parks and for ice cream missions. His puppy eyes were a certified goldmine, and Nymphy shamelessly used them to extract snack money from their parents like a professional con artist.

She was also a Metamorphmagus, a very hard to pronounce word for a very fun ability.

"Remember, we're going in, I give you permission to watch the movie as your chaperon. We never speak of it to Mum." Blair nodded solemnly at Nymphy as she morphed herself to look thirty, ready to commit minor cinema fraud for the greater good.

And that was the first time he watched Fright Night. And the last. He had nightmares for a week and kept sneaking into Nymphy’s room at night, clinging to her like a terrified pygmy puff with trust issues.

She also had nightmares, so they spent the week emotionally supporting each other through shared terror.

"I'm so glad to see you bonding," Mom said, looking genuinely proud. Blair and Nymphy glanced at each other and answered, "Yeah," in perfect sync. Bullet dodged.

This was also the first time he visited Diagon Alley to help Nymphy get her school supplies. He had so much fun and ate way too much ice cream. "I don't want you to go," he told her at the end of the day, eyes big and teary, already plotting how to hide in her trunk.

"I promise I'll come back for the winter holidays and show you all the cool spells we’ll do in third year. I bet you can do them wandless, cause you’re just that awesome," Nymphy said. Blair blushed so hard he nearly melted into the cobblestones.

"Well, bring on the cool spells then," he said, puffing up with flair. "We still need to get you hot bikini girls on your walls, but I bet we can enchant them so only you can see them."

"This is brilliant! I'll do the proper research," she said with a wink, already looking suspiciously motivated.

September came way too fast, and soon he was waving goodbye to Nymphy, eyes watery as she disappeared onto the train. A few people around them perked up when she called out, "Bye, Blair!" and suddenly there were whispers and sideways glances, because of course they recognized the name.

Some looked at him with awe, some with disgust, and for a moment, he felt really small and weirdly squishable.

"Let's go, you still have your lessons for today, young man," Dad said gently, pulling them all toward the portkey while clearly noticing the stares and the way Blair was shrinking into himself like a sad Puffskein.

"Young person," Blair corrected, chin up and voice firm.

"Huh?" Mom and Dad asked at the same time, blinking in perfect parental confusion.

"I like the gender-neutral terms more," he said with a grin, already proud of the identity power move.

"Oh, Merlin help me with those two," Mom muttered, rubbing her temples while Dad tried not to laugh and failed completely.

When they got home, Mom and Dad opened a bottle of champagne, probably to celebrate surviving the summer without anyone setting the house on fire. Blair was not offered a glass. Rude.

His sixth birthday came, then his seventh, each one marked with a family celebration and the best chocolate cake Dad could make.

He always got humble but well-thought-out presents, his very own pack of Uno, different Lego sets, and even a panda bear plushy he adored so much he refused to sleep without it.

For his eighth birthday, though, he got a whole portable cassette player just for himself. "OMG, Mom, this is the best!" Blair screamed as he tore open the wrapping. "I thought you would like it," she said, beaming like she’d just won the parenting cup.

Dad gave him a few cassettes with Queen songs and some ABBA. Blair was obsessed in no time. He had never heard that kind of music in his old life, being a proud Billie Eilish stan, but he loved it, and he hugged them both tight and long.

"Thank you so much!" he said, already planning his living room concerts.

Another amazing gift he got for his eighth birthday was permission to go out by himself to the nearby parks to play. Blair was ecstatic, already declaring himself the official ruler of the sandbox kingdom.

Through those years, Dad insisted on homeschooling him, too afraid of what Blair might do in the public school system without magical adult supervision. Fair. And probably smart.

Unfortunately, it meant Blair mostly hung out with his parents and Nymphy, which was great, don’t get him wrong. But he still wanted to play with kids his age who wouldn’t get bored after five rounds of Uno and start asking deep life questions instead of trading Draw Fours.

Blair also spent a lot of time thinking about how to help Sirius. He realized Mom had given up after the first few times they got nowhere trying to secure a trial date. Solicitors were expensive, and while they never lacked anything important, they didn’t have enough gold stacked for that kind of fight.

Blair wouldn’t be able to inherit anything from the Black family vaults until he was of age, which put him in a tough spot. And yet, he was getting really good at magic, potions, and spellwork (the practical parts, of course, the theory could go cry in a cauldron).

Nymphy taught him all the spells she picked up for mischief purposes, and Blair was already in league with fifth-year spells. He also figured out that anything complex needed proper research and to be stuck on right, runes, structure, all that boring stuff. But once he understood how it worked, casting it was easy peasy wandless breezy.

That was how he decided he’d try to sneak food and aid to Sirius. How, you may ask? Well, Blair had a plan, obviously.

"Mom, can you show me the Shrinking Charm again? I'm just practicing." And she did, after a short but thorough interrogation worthy of the Wizengamot.

Phase one completed. Blair saved up some money, bought a bunch of dried food and a basket, and organized it as if he was a tiny overachieving house-elf.

"Okay, now for the fun part." He focused, double-checked his notes, and cast a Shrinking Charm tied to a timer on the basket. It would unshrink in five hours. Perfect. Probably.

He had to stack two spells for that, but it worked. "Now for part two," he muttered to himself like a villain on a mission.

He grabbed the tiny origami bird he’d made, and when unfolded, the note inside read: 'Will unshrink in 2–5 hours. It’s just food, no need to touch or call the guards. The basket will quietly self-destruct. XOXO, Gossip Girl.'

Blair had also managed to Apparate objects from point A to point B, an own made spell that took him two years to perfect. All he needed was to see the target location for it to work.

Which was the main issue, because he couldn’t exactly peek into Azkaban and say, "Hey, mind if I scope out Sirius’s cell real quick?"

He couldn’t find a spell for that, so he figured, fine, he’d just invent another one. And that’s how another little origami crane ended up sitting on his desk. A minute later, it was flapping its paper wings and gliding gently around his room.

Blair pricked his finger with a needle and let a single drop of blood fall onto the crane. It shimmered and did a neat little loop in the air. Okay, a bit of a grey area, but not full-on black magic, probably.

"Sirius Black, blood of my blood," he told the crane, voice steady and dramatic because that’s how magical declarations were meant to be delivered.

The paper bird flew out the window at amazing speed, and Blair could now see through its eyes as it soared toward Azkaban. The bird carried a mix of powerful charms: a family-locating charm, a flying charm, a speed charm, and finally, a sight charm that let Blair spy on the prison from afar.

Oh, he could make a seriously good stalker. But for now, the magic only worked on family members who shared some of his DNA, which, covered a lot of people. Don't ask.

No more than an hour later, the paper crane reached Azkaban, and Blair guided it, seeing through its eyes as it searched for Sirius. And there he was. Tiny, painfully skinny, with matted black hair. Oh, poor Sirius.

Even under all that, Sirius still looked really cool with his tattoos and the famous Black family cheekbones that Blair shared. They looked alike, except for the coloring.

"Okay, we’ve got visual on the target," he said. Now that he could see the destination, he was ready to Apparate the second paper bird carrying the basket straight to it.

He looked at the basket. "Transvecto Portus!" he shouted, watching as a pink beam of light shot from his hand into the shrunken basket and the paper bird.

Immediately, both items flew through the air and landed at his brother’s feet. "Success!" Blair screamed, barely able to believe he’d pulled it off. The spell was his very own invention. He definitely needed a spooky notebook, call it his grimoire, and record every one of his spells there.

Sirius looked down at the items, confused, then up at the flying paper crane. "What in the hell?" Blair heard his brother mutter, disbelief clear in his voice.

"Are you watching me? What is this? Who sent you?" Sirius asked suspiciously. The paper crane and Blair couldn’t answer, but Blair wanted to keep watching. Sirius took the origami bird and unfolded it, reading the note once, then twice.

"Who the hell is Gossip Girl?" Blair heard him say, and that made him cracked up laughing.

"In time, Brother, you will know," Blair said ominously to no one. He hadn’t figured out how to put a ‘microphone’ charm on the spying bird, so he only could watch and hear, not the other way around. Yet.

But Blair did see Sirius take the mini-basket and wait. Eventually, it unshrank, and Sirius stared in shock at all the preserved food and energy bars inside.

"I'll be damned," Sirius said. "I don't know who you are or what your intentions are, so I won’t thank you. But thank you." Yep, classic Black family logic right there.

Blair let his spying bird catch fire in pink flames, making its dramatic exit from Azkaban as a crisped-up paper sacrifice. Sorry, paper spying bird.

"Next time, I'll use pink paper," Blair said, already plotting.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Mom asked, stepping into the room with a curious smile.

"Dear Merlin's tits! You scared the crap out of me!" Blair screamed, instantly regretting his choice of words.

"Blair! Language!" Mom screamed back, hands on hips and eyes blazing with mock horror.

"How long have you been standing there? What have you seen?" he asked, trying not to look guilty but failing spectacularly. Idiot!

"I just went up here to call you for dinner. I only saw you sitting on the bed, what were you doing?" she asked. But she didn’t have a spatula in hand, so Blair knew he still had a chance to make his escape.

"Ah, um, drugs!" Blair blurted out, panicking instantly, definitely the worst thing he could have said.

"You were what?!" Mom gasped. Oh, Merlin help him. Time to launch Operation: Distraction.

"Sorry, Mom, I stole some eyeshadow from Nymphy and tried it on. I was just taking it off and freaked out thinking you saw me with makeup," Blair explained, trying to pull off the '80s boy who definitely shouldn’t be caught near cosmetics' look.

Mom calmed down instantly. "Oh, sweetheart, you can put on and play with makeup all you want when you're at home. You're only eight, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to wear it outside just yet. If you still like it when you’re older, we’ll talk about it when you’re thirteen. Maybe some light makeup in third year at Hogwarts. That was the rule for Dora as well."

Oh, what an awesome woman she was, especially considering it was the ’80s and all. While it was a complete lie, Blair felt touched. He’d never actually been that interested in makeup, but the thought had crossed his mind. Maybe when he’s older.

"Thanks, Mom," he said sincerely, hugging her tight.

That year, he kept smuggling as much food as his allowance allowed while studying how to stack spells. When something got too complicated, he just invented a specific spell for what he needed instead of juggling multiple ones.

He also found an abandoned violin and did his best to repair it. He was in love with the sound it made, even if it was a little rough around the edges.

Blair practiced every day, making his Mom and Dad question all their life choices because he wasn’t very good. In the end, they signed him up for private lessons with a Muggle neighbor. Blair promised to only practice during lessons and for just an hour at home.

"Blair, you’re getting… coherent with that thing," Dad said, struggling to find the right word.

"Thanks! My fingers are suffering a little, though," Blair confessed with a laugh, then glanced over at Dad.

"What are you doing?" Blair asked, eyeing the potion Dad was brewing. Blair had not seen this one before.

"I had an order for wolfsbane," Dad explained. "Pretty rare, but cheap enough to make. They’re selling it at an outrageous price, though."

A light bulb went off in Blair’s mind. "Dad, please teach me! I’ve never seen that one," he demanded, practically vibrating with villainous glee.

Dad laughed, shaking his head like Blair just asked to brew a potion for endless snacks. "Yeah, sure, why not? Grab a chair, I’ll show you how to make it."

Once Dad explained it, Blair was genuinely baffled. "Why doesn’t the Ministry just make it and sell it to all registered werewolves at a supervised, super cheap price? Or better yet, just give it to them? It’d save so much pain and make sure no one gets hurt on full moons."

"You’re right, Blair," Dad said seriously. "Unfortunately, the Ministry doesn’t really want to help them, there’s a lot of prejudice out there. Promise me you’ll never look down on them. They’re wizards just like you and me. Of course, if they’re rude or you’re in danger, that’s a different story. You want to be part of the solution, not the problem, right?"

Oh bless Dad, the best (and only) Dad he had. "I want to be the whole problem," Blair said, grinning, making Dad burst out laughing. "You already are," he joked back, shaking his head.

"But yeah, I want to help. Teach me how to brew this, please?" Blair asked again.

"I will," Dad said, "but you have to be licensed to brew it. So just study it for now. You’re not allowed to make it for consumption, unlike some other potions I let you brew."

Blair nodded, knowing he wasn’t actually going to do that. A plan was already brewing in his head.

Dad taught him how to brew wolfsbane. After that, Blair swiped the ingredients without Dad noticing and used Nymphy’s room while she was at Hogwarts. After a few tries and months of magical mishaps, he finally brewed his first perfect batch.

Blair ran all the tests to make sure it was safe, triple-checked the results like a tiny mad scientist, then portioned and bottled it perfectly. He ended up with about twenty doses, each one labeled, sealed, and slightly glittery, because presentation mattered.

"Ssss, are you sure it’ll be okay?" David asked, his tongue flicking nervously. Even the snake looked mildly concerned about this latest round of illegal magical mischief.

Blair waited until both Mom and Dad were out of the house before flooing into Diagon Alley, then wandered off in his Muggle clothes straight into Knockturn Alley. He would've gotten a bunch of suspicious looks if he hadn’t cast a very powerful Concealment Charm.

He also made sure to keep a ward up around him, no way was anyone catching him off guard in this shady corner of the wizarding world.

Blair found a potions store and entered. The Clark didn't noticed him so he pulled on a hoddie covering his hair and eyes.

Blair was pretty sure the pure-blood gossip network had already blasted the news that Voldy had a son, and most people knew roughly what he looked like, plus the whole 'technically the Black heir' thing. So yeah, zero chances were being taken.

“Well hello there,” Blair said to the witch at the front, channeling his most charming mini-villain voice. “I have some wolfsbane I’m willing to sell,” he added, plopping the basket onto the counter with his usual dramatic flair.

The witch yelped, only just now noticing him. “How? Are you a child?!” she asked, horrified. Blair guessed even for Knockturn Alley, pint-sized potion dealers weren’t exactly the norm.

“My dad sent me here to sell it,” Blair said, trying his best to look like the tragic spawn of some dark wizard forced to do his bidding. Which, to be fair, was only half a lie.

“Wolfsbane, you say? A tricky potion, I’ll have to test them,” she said, but Blair caught her trying to swap his potions with lookalikes the same color. He zapped her hand with a quick sting, nothing too harsh, just enough to say, 'try that again and I’ll go full goblin mode.'

“Test one, they’re all from the same batch. Try to steal again and I’ll zap you so hard you’ll be paralyzed for the next three hours,” Blair warned, full mini-villain mode activated. After hearing enough of Mom 2’s monologues, he definitely knew how to sound terrifying with bonus theatrics.

The witch looked properly shocked. “But you don’t have a wand! How did you-” she began, and Blair just raised an eyebrow like a true dark heir, silently daring her to finish that sentence and risk getting zapped into next week.

“Test one potion or I’m selling to a different store,” Blair said coolly, and that lit a fire under the witch fast. She tested one, blinked at the quality as if it had slapped her, and Blair grinned. Hell yeah, he learned from the best.

“Thirty Galleons,” the witch finally said, clearly hoping he didn’t know any better. He knew he could get more for it, but that wasn't the purpose.

“Deal,” Blair agreed, even though he thought it was still too expensive for the cheap materials, capitalism wins again. “And who is Gossip Girl?” the witch asked, eyeing the branding on the bottles.

“That’s my… Dad’s brand name, so people know they’re getting quality with us. Anyone who tries to copy it gets an explosion to the face,” Blair said, only half-lying. He just hoped Gossip Girl wouldn’t sue him one day. Magical or not, copyright was terrifying.

And that’s how Blair ended up with more money than he’d ever owned. And also, accidentally became an underage potion dealer, which was basically the same thing as a drug dealer with extra steps.

Blair spent half the money restocking ingredients for more wolfsbane and the other half on food for his brother, because obviously being the dark heir came with childcare duties.

By the next month, he had brewed up sixty shiny bottles ready to sell to the same poor witch, Gretchen, as he’d learned, who now flinched every time he walked in as if he was a debt collector.

He managed to keep his disguise up, and so far no one in Knockturn Alley had dared approach him. Concealment Charm for the win.

“Fifty Galleons, I can’t do more,” Gretchen said.

“Thirty, take it or leave it,” Blair replied stubbornly, arms crossed, channeling the unholy mix of a goblin accountant and a reality show diva mid-elimination round.

“You do know you’re doing bargaining wrong, right?” Gretchen asked, looking exasperated.

“Yes, but I want you to sell it as cheap as you can so any werewolf in need can get it, okay?” Blair said. “Also, I’ll only take thirty Galleons from you each time. By next month I’ll have one hundred bottles, cool? Just make sure it gets to the right people and spread the word.”

Gretchen looked surprised, then oddly touched. “My brother is one, a werewolf,” she said quietly, and Blair, just gave a tiny nod like some mysterious potion Robin Hood.

“Well, so now he has enough Wolfsbane, right?” Blair asked, grinning, thrilled to have made someone’s life even a smidge easier. Gretchen nodded, eyes a little watery.

“It’s so hard to find at a normal price, even the thirty Galleons for twenty bottles was incredible. I couldn’t believe you agreed to that. This… this will really help. I promise I’ll get it to as many people as I can.”

Blair offered a curt nod. “Thanks, Gretchen, see you next month,” he said, then bolted down Knockturn Alley before she could piece together any incriminating details.

Blair had just enough Galleons stashed away to restock his potion ingredients and slip a fat pouch of food to Sirius.

Riding the thrill of small-time villainy–turned–tiny philanthropist, he kept up his monthly drops to Gretchen and dinner deliveries for Sirius, who’d by now come to expect the ritual.

Watching his brother wolf down his meal, Blair felt that gleeful buzz of having pulled off something good… even if it was with a side of mischief.

When Nymphy came back that summer and stepped into her room, she immediately screamed, “What is that smell?!” and Blair had to launch into emergency damage control mode.

Thank Merlin for the no-snitching household policy. He casually claimed he'd been secretly brewing potions there while she was off at school, waved away the stench with some sparkly air charms, and boom, problem solved.

That summer, Nymphy cornered Blair with a mischievous grin and asked him to buzz her head.

“Come on, it'll look so cool. Mum would never let me. But you can do it, right? And then what? She’s going to glue my hair back on?” Blair, equal parts chaos and enabler, grabbed the clippers.

“She could always use Crinis Muto to make it grow back,” Blair pointed out.

“She would never!” Nymphy declared. “Mum would never force a spell on us, we’re golden! Come on, little sibling, buzz me!” Blair cackled, channeling his barber energy, because if this went wrong, at least it would go wrong fabulously.

They called each other sibling instead of brother or sister, Blair’s idea, and Nymphy had jumped on it like it was a new broomstick model.

And that’s how Blair buzzed Nymphy’s hair while giggling like an unhinged pixie. She rocked the buzzcut and changed it into bright pink. “Looks awesome,” Blair said, genuinely impressed and only slightly bitter she looked cooler than him now.

“Were you doubting your barber skills?” she teased.

“Well, a little, never done that before,” Blair admitted, shrugging.

She just laughed. “Well, now you have, and it looks damn good.” Then she got a little quiet, which for Nymphy was rare enough to register as a national emergency. “Can I tell you something, Blair? But you really have to promise not to tell Mum and Dad.”

“Of course, you know I would never,” Blair said quickly, only mildly offended. He was the keeper of secrets, the vault of chaos, the goblin sworn to silence. But if Nymphy needed to double-check, it had to be something big.

“I started dating someone,” she said in a whisper. “WHAT?” Blair screeched, instantly transforming into his gossiping self. “OMG who? Is he from Hogwarts? Is he a Muggle from the neighborhood? Tell me everything right now or I’ll hex the suspense out of you!”

“She’s from Hogwarts, but she’s in Ravenclaw. I thought she was way too smart for me, but she’s really sweet. We started dating around Easter, her name’s Lucy,” Nymphy said. And for once, the room went quiet, the air thick with sibling-level feels.

“Ohhhhh,” was all Blair managed to squeak out, brain short-circuiting.

“You’re like Snaccarina and Nagini Minaj. Iconic, powerful, and probably banned in three countries for unrelated reasons. You'll have to ask David."

“Who?” Nymphy blinked, clearly expecting anything but that. Blair looked personally offended.

“They’re two lady snakes I used to sing with when I was a child. Rented a nest together when I left. Snaccarina broke David’s heart because she wanted to be with Nagini Minaj. Don’t you remember? I told you all the snake gossip before. David only just got over her,” Blair finished proudly, and Nymphy just stared at him.

“What is even your life, Blair?” was all she managed to say. “I ask that very same question myself all the time,” he replied with complete sincerity, and then they both burst out laughing.

“So you have a girlfriend? Ohhh, Nymphy and Lucy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G-” Blair sang before getting a pillow yeeted straight into his gut with the force of righteous vengeance.

“I’m happy for you, really,” Blair said, dropping the teasing for a rare moment of sincerity. “Whoever you like must be awesome.” Nymphy didn’t say anything, she just pulled him into a hug.

“So you don’t care she’s a girl?” Nymphy asked.

“Of course not! Love is love and all,” Blair said proudly.

“Wow, that’s a nice slogan, I’m definitely stealing it,” she grinned. Yeah, it hadn’t blown up yet, classic Blair move, trademarking slogans before they’re cool.

“But please don’t tell Mum and Dad, I’ll tell them later,” she said, and Blair promised, pinky-swear style. Then they headed downstairs for dinner, pizza night, aka the one meal sacred enough to temporarily pause all drama and chaos.

“What have you done?!” Mom screamed, and in the chaos of girlfriend gossip, Blair had completely forgotten that Nymphy was now rocking a freshly buzzed head.

He grabbed himself and ran for his life, legs shaking as he dashed upstairs and slammed the door shut, locking it like a true survivor. He loved his sibling, but he wasn’t about to get caught in the crossfire of that.

After a few minutes, Mom came upstairs. “Sweetheart, we finished screaming at each other. Come eat dinner. I don’t blame you, she would’ve done it herself anyway, and honestly, it’s better you did it. You can do whatever you like to your appearance, I suppose. I still get to be angry about it, though.”

Blair nodded obediently, doing his best impression of a reformed chaos gremlin, and headed down for pizza like a good little menace.

Mom turned to Blair again. “But if you ever shave your hair without talking to me first, you’ll be grounded for a month.” Blair gasped, clutching his invisible pearls. “I would never! I need it long so I can braid it with my pink ribbons!” he exclaimed.

“Oh Merlin, what is my life?” Mom muttered to herself as Blair skipped past her with maximum dramatic flair, and they all sat down to eat the tensest pizza in wizarding history.

“I like it though, suits you,” Dad said honestly, and Nymphy melted a little on the spot but stayed quiet, still silently fuming from the earlier screaming match. Teen angst and hair clippers were a powerful combo.

Well, that was a start.

After Nymphy left for Hogwarts, Blair locked into a painfully tight schedule with a to-do list longer than a Ministry report.

He kept up his potion brewing, determined to get as much Wolfsbane out there as possible, and doubled down on sending food to Sirius, who was finally starting to look less like a haunted skeleton and more like a scruffy, underfed dog in recovery. Progress.

In his spare time, Blair practiced the violin and sat through study sessions with his Dad, which were half actual learning and half 'try not to sass back.'

Whenever he had a free moment, he bolted to the park, where he’d met a group of cool kids and accidentally founded a little Uno cult. They played Uno or dodgeball nearly every other day, and Blair was undefeated.

Blair felt a wave of nostalgia hit him during one of those park days, memories of his old life and friends bubbling up out of nowhere.

He came home in tears, surprising and worrying his parents. “I just remembered Mom, the one I had before,” he told them through quiet sobs, and it was true enough to hurt in all the right places.

They pulled him into a tight hug that night, no questions asked, and let him curl up in their bed, safe between them.

It was a rather hot September afternoon, and Blair decided it was the perfect time for a long, sweat-drenching playdate with the park gang.

“Mom, I’m going to play outside, touch grass!” Blair yelled in her general direction, already halfway out the door.

“Why would you touch the grass, sweetheart? Oh, why am I even bothering, go along, just be back before it gets dark,” Mom called after him, already resigned to whatever unholy mischief he had planned this time.

And off he went. Uno time.

“Hey Levi, hey Hanna, hey Sari,” Blair chirped to the Uno cult, practically glowing. They all mumbled a lazy row of heys back, too busy setting up cards and side-eyeing the heat.

Blair was just really glad they gave a homeschooled chaos gremlin like him a chance. David slithered from his shoulder, hissing at the sun like it owed him money. He was having fun.

His friends were still a bit wary of David, but as long as the sassy serpent stayed curled on Blair’s shoulder, everything was golden. “Hey Blair. Hello to you too, David,” Levi said politely, because Levi was a very polite child, which made Blair tickle him at any given opportunity just to see if manners could survive a giggle attack.

“I have brought the holy cards, let the council assemble. We shall play!” Blair declared, reciting the same ceremonial nonsense he did every single time, because tradition was sacred and chaos must be formalized.

“You are so weird,” Sari and Hanna giggled in that secret-language way girls do. “Well, I am the Uno cult leader, it is only expected from me,” Blair replied with mock dignity as he flopped down.

They started to play, and for the first time in a while, Blair was genuinely chilling, no Azkaban food smuggling, no potion-dealing in Knockturn Alley, just a perfectly normal Uno cult meeting. Even super-villains needed a day off.

They were in the middle of the third round. Blair was one card away from victory and already planning his evil laugh, when a group of kids, roughly their age, came sprinting through the trees surrounding the park, kicking up leaves with every step.

They were chasing a smaller kid, who looked like he was on the verge of tears and very much about to get caught.

About five of them closed in, cornering him near the edge of the trees, and the so-called leader puffed up his chest and started monologuing. “Thought you could escape, you little rat? Well, we’re about to teach you a lesson about making us run.”

Huh, Blair thought, eyebrows raised. That kid looked like he should do some running though, all sweaty and round with a tragic mop of blond hair.

And Blair fully allowed himself to be mean, because that kid was mean first, and in the sacred Uno cult rulebook, that meant open season.

“Oh hell no, not on my watch, not in my park. Uno cult, assemble!” Blair declared, already marching toward the scene like a pint-sized war general.

His three friends scrambled after him, they knew Blair could handle this solo, but he loved a dramatic entrance with backup. United front. Always.

“Well well well, what do we have here?” Blair began, sounding uncannily like a mini Dr. Doofenshmirtz with a superiority complex. “I don’t know if you know, though it does seem you're lacking a few brain cells, but you hereby trespass on sacred Uno cult grounds. Everyone’s welcome here. Except bullies. So chop chop, begone, peasants!”

Everybody stared at him, even the smaller kid on the ground, wide-eyed and stunned.

“You think you’re funny? Bet you won’t talk like that when my fist hits your face! There are five of us,” the leader barked, trying (and epically failing) to look intimidating.

“Aw, you think that’s intimidating? I’ve seen garden gnomes with more threatening energy. One of them bit me once. You, sweetie, just breathe heavily and chase crisps.”

Blair was pretty sure he broke them, judging by their confused faces, no one had ever talked to them like that before.

The smaller kid on the ground looked both deeply touched and absolutely terrified. Poor thing.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m used to it. Just go, it’s fine,” the small kid mumbled, trying to disappear into the dirt. Blair blinked. Used to it? Oh no. Absolutely not. Not on his watch. In that moment, Blair decided he would die for this kid, preferably in a dramatic duel with theme music and lightning in the background.

“It’s fine, don’t worry, give us four minutes and they’ll be gone,” Blair said calmly, then crouched down and scooped a suspiciously large handful of sand. Everyone stared at him like he’d finally lost it, and to be fair, Blair had never claimed to be the sanest person in the park.

“Okay, ready? One… Two… Three!” Blair shouted, then chucked the sand at the group of bullies, adding just the tiniest flick of magic to make sure every grain found its way into their eyes.

He kicked up a subtle gust of wind, making it all look perfectly natural. The boys screamed, clutching their faces and rubbing their eyes like they’d just been hit by a tiny desert tornado.

Blair clapped his hands with villainous glee. “Now, Uno gang, finish them!” he commanded, and his friends charged in like a tiny, card-wielding warriors of justice.

Levi, Hanna, and Sari burst into full-on laughter as they charged. They ran straight at the bullies, tripping them with the precision of kids who’d trained for this moment their whole lives, tossing in a few well-aimed kicks to the legs for good measure. The boys hit the ground in a flailing pile of defeat.

“And that was four minutes,” Blair said sweetly, dusting off his hands. “Ready to get out of our park, or would you prefer to witness Protection Plan 24? This was just Plan 17, my personal favorite.”

The boys were already scrambling away, tripping over each other in their rush to escape, completely forgetting the small kid they came to torment.

“Are you okay?” Blair asked gently, offering the boy a hand. The poor thing looked completely rattled, staring at Blair’s outstretched hand like it might explode.

“A-are you going to hurt me too? Like them? Is that a snake?!” the boy stammered, eyes wide with fear. Blair was absolutely scandalized.

“Of course not! Everyone’s welcome, except bullies. You can totally stay!” Blair beamed, activating his ultimate weapon: the puppy eyes.

“And that’s David. He’s friendly, unless you try to pet his belly, he’s a little sensitive about that.”

The boy hesitated, then slowly reached out and took Blair’s hand, standing up on shaky little legs like a newly hatched hippogriff.

“Um, thank you. Really. That was… that was incredible!” the small boy said, eyes wide with awe.

“You are very welcome,” Blair said with a proud little bow. “I’m Blair, those are Levi, Hanna, and Sari, and together we are the Uno gang, or cult, depends on the day. Protectors of this sacred park.”

He puffed up slightly. “And you are?”

“Oh, I’m Harry,” the smaller kid said.

Just then, a real gust of wind swept through the park, tousling Harry’s hair and pushing it back, revealing a faint, lightning-shaped scar. Blair blinked. Ohhhhhhhhhh. Oh no.

He was that Harry. Holy Merlin’s tits, Blair thought, eyes wide. He’d just tried to adopt the Chosen One into the Uno cult.

“Please, Harry. Come. Sit. Do you like Uno?” Blair asked, summoning all his flair.

Harry shrank back a little. “Never played it,” he said, wincing like he’d just confessed a war crime. Blair gasped, scandalized all over again.

“That’s okay. Really okay. Are you willing to learn our way?” Blair asked solemnly. “Umm… yes?” Harry replied, clearly unsure if he’d just agreed to a card game or a lifelong contract.

“Don’t take him seriously, Blair’s just wired like that,” Hanna said, coming to the rescue.

“Yes I am, now sit down and let us teach you the art of Uno,” Blair declared. “You are hereby under our protection. As long as you’re in the park with us, nothing will get to you. This is the power of Uno, friendship, and the frankly illegal amount of sugar we smuggle from the nice park grannies.”

Blair led Harry to their sacred Uno spot and urged him to sit down, gently patting the grass. Harry looked like he was about to cry, and Blair really, really hoped those were happy tears.

Because nobody, and he meant nobody, was touching Harry on his watch. Not even his biological father. Aka Voldy. Aka Snakeface McTrauma.

Chapter Text

“Did you or did you not have a fight in the park today?!” Mom demanded the second Blair stepped inside. Damn, who snitched? Probably Mrs. Thompson with her hawk eyes and way too much free time. She was eighty, bored, and basically the park’s unofficial dementor.

“If you’re referring to the protection plan we were forced to activate today against not one, not two, but five bullies, then yes, indeed, I was fighting. For my homeland, the sacred smaller park in the northside,” Blair declared, hand on heart.

Mom was not amused.

“It wasn’t the big park with the swings,” Blair clarified quickly, as if that would somehow reduce his sentence.

“I know which park you are referring to!” Mom snapped, and oh no, the spatula was coming out. Blair turned to David in full panic. “David, crawl to our room and lock yourself in the cage. I’ll owl Nymphy to transfer your custody. It was lovely knowing you, my friend.”

David didn’t hesitate and slithered off to the room without a backward glance.

Blair had told him to do that, sure, but still. Blair was disappointed. Where was the loyalty? Where was the slow, emotional goodbye? Rude.

“I never want you to use violence, Blair, not even in a situation like that. You instigated the fight! You didn’t even try talking to them first! I am very disappointed in you,” Mom said, and Blair winced like he’d been personally slapped by a howler.

Oh no. The disappointed card. The most powerful weapon in the parental arsenal. “Okay, you’re right, violence isn’t the answer,” Blair said, even though, deep down, he absolutely didn’t believe it.

“But they were hurting a kid who couldn’t defend himself. I know you always tell me I have to stand up for myself and that I can use force in situations like that. The only difference here is that I did it for someone else who couldn’t fight back. It was self-defense by proxy! I won’t stand down from that. And unfortunately, they already threatened me with fists, I gave them a chance to leave.”

Blair crossed his arms, firm in his mini-warrior morals, even if he knew he was tap dancing on the edge of a spatula lecture.

He finished his speech with all the conviction of a tiny revolutionary and watched as his mom silently reached into the cabinet and pulled out a wine bottle. Sorry, Mom.

“Well, when you say it like that, I understand where you’re coming from,” Mom said, sighing as she uncorked the bottle. “But Blair, I don’t want this for you. I don’t want you to use your incredible gifts to hurt people.”

He heard the underline in her voice, today it’s bullies, tomorrow it might be someone who doesn’t deserve it, just because Blair can. And Blair would never. Not even if they insulted his ribbons or called David a worm. Probably.

“Mom! I won’t,” Blair protested, throwing his hands up. “It was very controlled violence, really! Strategic sand deployment and minor tripping. No blood, no hexes, not even a nosebleed! I’ve seen worse at our Uno tournaments.”

“A controlled violence?! Do you even hear yourself, Blair? Go to your room,” Mom snapped, rubbing her temples. “You’re not grounded, but we are taking your violin for a week. Bring it down-"

But Blair was already running up the stairs, eyes stinging with tears. Did they really think this would be a slippery slope for him? That he’d start zapping people just because he could? He would never do this on a daily basis.

And yet, deep in his chest, he didn’t feel guilty at all for what he’d done to the bullies. Not even a little.

They deserved it. They would’ve hurt Blair, Harry, Hanna, and the others without blinking. In his opinion, it was self-defense, maybe not for himself, but for everyone they tried to scare. And this was the hill he would die on, proudly, dramatically, possibly with a glitter bomb in hand.

Blair was full-on moping, face buried in his pillow, quietly crying the kind of tears only dramatic injustice and temporary violin loss could summon, when a soft knock tapped at his door.

“Blair? I brought you dinner,” Dad said gently from the other side of the door, voice soft.

“I’m not hungry,” Blair replied with peak passive-aggressive misery, stomach growling in direct betrayal of his words.

“Oh, so you don’t want the mac and cheese? Okay, I can just-” Dad started, already pretending to turn around.

“Bring it here and leave,” Blair mumbled, face still smushed into the pillow, voice muffled but packed with tragic energy.

Dad entered and placed the plate on Blair’s desk before sitting on the edge of the bed and gently petting Blair’s hair. Blair cracked, lifting his head just enough to glare with mild drama.

“Hey, Dad. You here to lecture me too?”

Dad smiled softly. “No, I think you’ve had enough with your Mum. I don’t approve of what you did, but I understand why you did it. While I wish you’d never find yourself in those kinds of situations, I know that’s not realistic. I just want you to promise me, Blair, never hurt someone just to hurt them, okay? Promise me,” he said, voice gentle but firm.

“I promise, Dad. I would never. I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just wanted to help,” Blair said, then burst into tears again right into Dad’s shirt, soaking it in snot. They really had to stop having their heart-to-hearts this way.

“You’re only worried because I’m his son, right? Voldemort,” Blair mumbled into Dad’s shirt, voice thick. “But I’ll never be like him. Never. I’m not his. I never even met the maniac. I’m going to be like my Dad, Ted Tonks, and no one else.”

Dad went stiff at hearing the name Voldemort, but then his face crumpled, and he started crying too, hearing Blair say those words. “So, you know, don’t you?” he whispered. Blair nodded.

“You are not his son, not for one bit. You are my son, as you said. No one else,” Dad promised, holding him tighter than ever.

“And we are worried. We’d be just as worried if it were Dora,” Dad continued gently. “We don’t know what those five years with Walburga did to you.” Blair winced at the name, stomach twisting.

“We don’t want you to have that influence in your life,” Dad said softly.

“So your Mum, knowing how that side of the Black family can be, maybe went a little overboard. But only because she loves you so much. Just as I do.”

There was silence for a few minutes as they stayed wrapped in the hug, neither of them moving, not wanting to let go.

“Dad, wouldn’t it make more sense to punish me by confiscating my cassette player rather than my violin?” Blair mumbled into his shoulder, voice still teary but now laced with scheming.

“Oh, umm, well, you know… the sounds you make with it are very unique-”

“Mom wants a week of quiet and seized the opportunity?” Blair asked flatly, lifting his head just enough to squint at him. Dad gave a guilty cough.

“She may have mentioned it once. Or twelve times.” Dad admitted, and Blair let out a small laugh, barely more than a puff of air. “Okay,” he said quietly, the weight in his chest just a little bit lighter now.

Dad gently brushed Blair’s messy hair and braided it into his favorite style with practiced fingers, then placed a soft kiss on his head and left him to his dinner and sulking in peace.

Blair did feel better, but he still required a full night of angst alone in his room for emotional stability.

The next morning, Blair hugged his mom tight and she hugged him right back, pressing a kiss to his head. “I love you, Blair, I really do. Please be responsible in the choices you’re making,” she said gently, and Blair winced, because he was absolutely heading to Knockturn Alley today.

In his opinion, it was a perfectly good choice. He just wasn’t going to tell Mom. For her own peace of mind. Obviously.

“I love you too, Mom,” Blair said sweetly but honestly as he sat down for breakfast, pretending to be the very picture of innocence while mentally reviewing his secret Knockturn Alley supply run checklist.

Later that day, Blair made his way down to Knockturn Alley and approached Gretchen with his most charming mini-merchant grin.

“You think you could do fifty Galleons for a hundred potions? Promise I won’t raise prices again, it’s just inflation, you know.”

In truth, Blair had been thinking about how skinny and small Harry looked, even though they were the same age. He definitely had another mouth to feed now. No question. And he already had an idea brewing on how to smuggle food to Harry, discreetly, of course, and probably with glitter-coded packaging.

“No, I do not know, what is that infleper you’re talking about? But yes, I could pay fifty Galleons, we’ll make it a fixed price. Each month I’m selling out immediately. I feel like all the werewolves of Britain come here now,” she said with a smile.

Blair beamed back, pretending not to notice the way she absolutely butchered the word inflation.

“Oh, nice. Tell me, by any chance have you seen a brown-haired werewolf? With scars on his face?”

Blair asked casually, doing his best impression of someone not trying to track down a famous ex-Marauder. He kept his tone light, expression innocent, definitely not about to drop Remus’s name.

Gretchen raised an eyebrow. “You do know you just described fifty percent of the werewolf population, right?” Blair blinked. Huh. He did, didn’t he. Damn. That was unhelpfully generic.

“Oh well, never mind. See you next month, Gretchen. Got potions to brew, ta ta,” Blair said, making his usual grand exit with a wave worthy of the queen and the attitude of someone who absolutely considered himself royalty of the underground potion economy.

“So weird…” he heard Gretchen mutter behind him. Yes, he was. Undeniably. Unapologetically. Deal with it.

He went to the park every day after the Harry incident of '89. Apparently, none of the other Uno gang members got into trouble, only Blair.

Mrs. Thompson sat on her usual bench, giving him an evil little grin like a pensioner-powered Dark Lord. Maybe she was an undercover dementor. Definitely managed to suck the happiness from him. Blair wouldn't be surprised if she had a Ministry badge and a soul-sucking license.

He knew he shouldn’t steal the pigeons Mrs. Thompson was feeding, but what could he do if they liked him better? They flocked to Blair even when he didn’t have breadcrumbs. That’s on you, Mrs. Thompson! Take it up with the avian council.

Since it was almost October, the Uno gang had gone back to school and started showing up at the park way less. Blair got it, Hanna and Sari had gymnastics together, and Levi had his very serious book club for English class, which apparently wasn’t just snacks and judging covers. Shame.

Blair had puppy eyes so powerful they could bend time, space, and most importantly, convince his dad to release him from lessons early.

So he waited, and started brewing Wolfsbane in the park behind the trees, concealed and protected by a bunch of charms so it wouldn’t pose a problem.

He even designed an automatic stirrer for it, like magical coding, three stirs counterclockwise, after an hour another twelve, and so on. Absolute potion tech genius.

How had nobody thought of this before? It brewed perfectly on its own with flawless results every time. Blair had already started designing an automatic stirring spell for all the first-year potions and was nearly done.

As long as you prepped everything right and added the ingredients at the correct time, you were golden. Potion automation, baby. Efficiency with flair.

Blair was also working on a charm that would make a cauldron tell you when an ingredient needed to be added. It wasn’t lazy, it was smart (and maybe a little lazy). He’d show Dad once it was done and blow his potion-loving mind.

After two weeks, Blair finally saw Harry again. The boy looked even smaller somehow, with shaky legs and a searching look in his eyes as he stepped into the park.

Blair was off to the side messing with his violin, but the moment he spotted him, he waved like a maniac summoning a lost duckling.

“Harry! Over here!” Blair shouted, waving both arms. Harry looked a little hesitant, eyes flicking around the park like he half-expected a trap, but after a moment, he made his way over to Blair, slow and cautious.

“Umm, hey Blair, where are all the rest? Not that it isn’t good to see you! I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just-” Harry rambled, immediately tripping over his own words.

Blair stopped him with a laugh. “Relax, will you? They’ve all got after school activities and I’m just a humble, homeschooled boy, so here we are,” Blair said, spreading his arms like the moment deserved fanfare.

"You're a boy?!" Harry nearly shouted before clamping his mouth shut, looking like he might bolt any second. "Sorry, sorry," he mumbled, eyes wide with panic.

Blair blinked, looked down at his glittery sneakers, pink ribboned braids, and unicorn hoodie, then grinned. “I mean, yeah. Last I checked. But I’m also fabulous, so it’s an easy mistake.” He gave Harry a wink. “Don’t worry, no offense taken. Happens more than you’d think. Will you sit down already?”

Harry eventually sat down, still looking a bit wary. Blair waved him off. "I really don’t care, Harry, stop fussing. It’s an honor being a girl, I’m just not one."

Harry blinked at him. "You are weird."

Blair grinned. "Thank you, I work very hard on it. still wanna be friends?"

Harry looked stunned. "You want to be friends with me?"

"Of course! You’ve improved at Uno, so you’re officially friend material," Blair said with a bright smile. "Also, I brought a bunch of sandwiches and snacks, help yourself, I’ve got a tummy ache and refuse to perish alone."

Harry hesitated, but Blair spotted the hunger in his eyes. Eventually, Harry devoured nearly everything. "Thanks, Blair," he mumbled through the last bite.

"Don't mention it," Blair said with a grin, bumping his shoulder. They didn’t do anything wild, just played and talked, well, Blair talked while Harry listened, smiling more with every ridiculous thing Blair said.

It was easy once Harry got past whatever hesitation he had about Blair. It was fun. Different from other friends.

Probably because Harry was like him. Magical. And soon, Blair would tell him everything and show off all the cool stuff.

Harry didn’t tell Blair much about his family or what he was dealing with, just that some days he wasn’t allowed outside and he’d come when he could.

Blair nodded solemnly and promised he’d always be here, no matter what, unless he got kidnapped by goblins, but even then he’d try.

Blair will make sure it would be different for Harry, he’d know before Hogwarts about magic, he’d arrive prepared. Luckily, it was David who gave Blair the perfect opening to spill the magical beans.

Two weeks later, Harry showed up at the park again, more relaxed this time, and genuinely happy to see Blair.

"Blair!" Harry shouted, sprinting toward him. "Ah, Green Eyes, thank you for blessing me with your presence today," Blair said grandly. "Would you fancy a snack?" Harry nodded eagerly, his stomach growling in agreement.

They ate together, and today Harry did most of the talking. "They’re awful at school! I’m always hiding in toilets! And if I get better grades than Dudley, my aunt and uncle lose it!" he huffed, clearly fed up.

"They aren’t!" Blair gasped, scandalized.

"They need therapy and chill pills, seriously, sounds like tragic excuses for adults. And here I thought my Mom was bad with a spatula, but she’s actually awesome. My first Mom though, before the Tonks adopted me? Nightmare fuel. But I’m good now, upgraded family and everything."

Harry looked at him with wide eyes. "You’re adopted too?"

Blair nodded. "Yeah, both my parents were gone by the time I was five. Andy’s my cousin, but she’s way older and took me in. I’ve got an older sibling too, Dora. She’s at boarding school, but you might meet her over the summer! She’s super cool," he added, clearly bragging just a bit and absolutely proud of his sibling.

Which made the whole thing a bit messed up when he thought about it, honestly, since Harry was, in a roundabout baby way, involved in one of Blair’s parents dying.

And Blair’s sperm donor? Fully responsible for the death of Harry’s. Blair wasn’t dumb, he knew things would get awkward fast once Harry found out. He just hoped Harry wouldn’t run for the hills or try to hex him with raw emotion and no wand skills.

And yet, Harry listened with such quiet longing that Blair was five seconds away from full-on abducting him and convincing the Tonks to adopt him too.

"Ssss, that sibling of yoursss is a menace, don’t introduce her to more victimsss," David hissed lazily from Blair’s shoulder, eyes half-lidded. Blair snorted a laugh before he could stop himself.

"Did that snake just talk?!" Harry yelped, jumping back as he stared at David. Blair’s head snapped toward him, eyes wide. Oh. Oh! Of course!

Harry was a Parseltongue! Oh. My. Gobstones. "David, you tactical masterpiece of a snake," Blair whispered. David just blinked, unbothered, and flicked his tongue like this was beneath him.

Okay Blair. Face, scene, action.

"You can hear David too?!" Blair gasped, practically vibrating. "OMG, Harry, you didn’t tell me you were one of us! Do you know what this means? Snake gossip. Secret codes. Prank potential through the roof!"

"One of what? What’s going on? Y-you can hear him too?" Harry asked, looking between Blair and David like they’d grown matching hats.

Harry looked a bit freaked out, so Blair toned it down, well, as much as he was physically capable of. "You know, a wizard," he said with full drama, while casually casting sneaky privacy wards.

"I haven’t played with wizard kids since I was five, not many around here, so this is going to be so much fun! And you’re a Parseltongue too? That’s rare, capital R! David’s going to love chatting your ears off."

"Yesss, it will be fun. Nice to meet meet you, Harry," David hissed, then slithered over to a very confused but weirdly accepting Harry, who let the snake curl up in his hand like this was a perfectly normal Tuesday.

"A wizard? Really? You mean, like magic?" Harry asked, eyes wide.

Blair launched into full explanation mode, hands waving and words flying. They talked for hours, piecing together all of Harry’s weird magical accidents like a conspiracy board.

At one point, Blair hid behind a tree and pulled off the pink lights trick, just for flair. Harry’s jaw dropped, eyes full of wonder, staring at Blair like he was the coolest person to ever exist.

"But I can’t do that," Harry said, pouting.

"Well, I’m a little special, probably got some weird Black family magical inheritance. Mom’s researching it, but no luck so far."

Harry looked at him like he’d just spoken in ancient runes. Or Mandarin. Whatever. Point is, very confused.

So Blair talked and talked, giving Harry the full magical exposition, Hogwarts, the Tonks, Diagon Alley, goblins with bad customer service, everything.

"Do you maybe know my parents? Could they be, um… magical too?" Harry finally asked. Huh. Blair did know. He definitely wasn’t supposed to, but yeah… he knew.

"What’s your last name? Maybe I’ve heard it around."

"It's Potter, Harry Potter." he said, and Blair smiled.

"Well, it sounds familiar, but I’m not sure, I’ll ask Mom and Dad, they know loads of people," Blair said, all casual charm. "Meet me here tomorrow? I’ll spill whatever secrets I dig up."

Harry nodded, looking genuinely touched. "Thank you, Blair. Really. I'm so glad I met you."

Blair grinned and offered a high five. "Anything for a fellow Uno cult member." Harry laughed, the kind that made Blair feel like he'd just leveled up in friendship XP.

"So this is why you’re like that? Is that how all magic people behave?" Harry asked, making Blair burst out laughing.

"No, I’m just really weird," Blair said proudly, and Harry smiled like that made perfect sense.

"See you tomorrow, Green Eyes! It’s already dark and I’m late and definitely about to be screamed at, but totally worth it!" Blair called, skipping off like chaos in sneakers.

Blair headed home with a grin plastered across his face, feeling like he’d just won a lifetime supply of chocolate frogs and unlocked a main quest at the same time.

"Where have you been?" his mom asked, opening the door with that terrifying combo of worry and fury only parental figures could master.

"Okay, Mom, before you get mad, you won’t believe the day I had. I met a magical kid!" Blair said, beaming. His mom immediately looked seventy-five percent more stressed and five seconds from summoning backup.

"No, Mom, he really is! I met him a few weeks ago and we’ve just been playing, I never told him about magic or anything. But today David said something to me and the kid understood him! He’s magical, and a Parseltongue! I’ve never met one before!" Blair said, practically vibrating with excitement while David nodded smugly from his pocket.

Mom went silent, her face doing that tight worried thing that meant she was already spiraling. Blair knew she was probably imagining he’d befriended a Mini-Death-Eater in training, what with Parseltongue being a dark ability and all.

But be serious, it was the same nonsense Blair had to deal with. Genetics weren’t a moral compass, and this kid had green pretty eyes and zero murder vibes.

"But Muggles are raising him 'cause his parents passed away, he didn’t even know about magic! He’s had loads of accidental magic and no clue what it meant. I spent the whole evening explaining stuff to him, that’s why I was late. But Mom, meeting someone like me? It was incredible!" Blair said, eyes wide with excitement, hands flailing like he’d just discovered fire.

Blair was still practically vibrating. "He didn’t even know his parents were magical! I don’t recognize the name, but I wanted to ask if maybe you knew them," he said.

"Okay, sweetheart, okay. Take a breath," Mom said, her voice soft but serious.

"Sounds like he really is a magical child, but you have to be careful! If he wasn’t, he’d have to be Obliviated. Parseltongue is a dead giveaway, so I understand, you did the right thing. Poor soul, not even knowing he’s a wizard and losing his parents… Maybe we know the family. What’s his name?"

"Oh, his name is Harry Potter. Do you know anyone with that family name?" Blair asked casually, already bracing for the dramatic gasp he knew was coming.

His parents hadn’t been active members of the Order, but they supported it however they could. They had to know the Potters, everyone in the British magical community knew that story.

His parents went quiet, both looking stunned. "We didn’t know he was here with Muggle relatives… what are the chances," Dad muttered, brow furrowed like the universe had just dropped a plot twist in their living room.

What followed was a very long conversation. His parents sat him down and told him everything, officially this time. Voldemort, Walburga, the fall of the Potters, all the messy magical lore.

Blair listened intently, nodding with exaggerated gasps and dramatic 'no way' reactions at all the right moments.

"Oh, this is awful," Blair said. "His parents are dead because of my… um, DNA giver," he added quickly, avoiding the words 'sperm donor' to dodge a parental lecture on proper language.

Dad laughed. "That’s one way to say it."

"But he’s so nice and sweet, and I think his aunt and uncle aren’t very nice. I just want to help him," Blair said, eyes wide and pleading. "Please, can we invite him over? So you can tell him about his parents?"

"Of course, darling. Ted’s home most days, he can talk to him if I’m not," Mom said softly. "We’ll find some photos for him too. Invite him over."

And the next day, Blair did exactly that, catching a very surprised and shy Harry off guard. "Are you sure? I don’t want to impose. Your parents are okay with it?" Harry asked, fidgeting like he might vanish if someone blinked too hard.

Blair practically dragged Harry up the steps to his house like an overexcited Niffler with a shiny new best friend. "Yes, they’re totally fine with it! Actually, it was their idea, sort of, I may have heavily hinted. You’re going to love them. And Mom said she’s making pie."

Harry blinked. "Pie?"

"Yes. Pie. Fruit and sugar. Very important wizarding tradition. Probably. Maybe. Whatever, it’s delicious," Blair declared with full confidence and zero factual backing.

The door swung open before Blair even knocked. His Mom stood there, smiling gently, but her eyes scanned Harry like she had a trauma-detection spell built in. "You must be Harry," she said warmly, crouching a little to meet his eyes. "I’m Andromeda, but you can call me Andy."

So Mom was home by now, score.

Harry shifted awkwardly but gave a small nod. "Nice to meet you, ma’am," he said, polite enough to make Blair whisper, “Ugh, he’s so well-mannered, we have to keep him.”

"Oh no," Mom said, mock-offended, "we don’t do ‘ma’am’ here. Makes me feel like I work for the Ministry." Blair grinned, though he still had no clue where she actually worked, and it was way too embarrassing to ask at this point. He’d just make Nymphy spill it later.

She stepped aside to let him in, and Ted poked his head out from the kitchen with a warm smile. "Hey there, Harry. I’m Ted, Blair’s dad. You like lemon pie?"

"I think so?" Harry said, already overwhelmed. The house smelled like cinnamon, books, and slightly scorched potion ingredients, definitely not what he was used to.

David gave a soft hiss from Blair’s shoulder, tail flicking. Harry’s eyes lit up. "Hey, David, sorry, didn’t see you there before."

Mom nearly dropped the pie dish, eyes snapping between Harry and David.

Blair grinned, all smug. "Told you. Parseltongue confirmed," he said, looking way too pleased with himself.

Dad let out a low whistle. "Well, I’ll be. A real Parselmouth, and polite too. You’re already our favorite guest and we haven’t even fed you yet," he said, grabbing plates like this was a perfectly normal Tuesday.

"Hey, I’m a real Parselmouth too!" Blair huffed, clearly offended, while Dad laughed and ruffled his hair like that somehow fixed the betrayal.

They led Harry into the cozy, slightly chaotic kitchen, where mismatched mugs and magical toasters lived in perfect harmony. Blair pulled out a chair for him with the flair of a dramatic host at a royal banquet.

"So," Blair said, clasping his hands like he was about to unveil a plot twist. "Dad and Mom know your parents, they wanted to talk to you. Would that be okay?"

Harry looked nervously at Andy and Ted, who both offered warm, gentle smiles, and gave a small nod.

And so they told him.

They spoke about James and Lily, funny, brave, deeply loved. About the war, the sacrifices, and the terrible night everything changed.

They skipped the gruesome bits but didn’t sugarcoat the truth. Everyone went a little stiff when they reached the part about who Blair was, the air getting thick with quiet tension.

Blair had asked them to tell, he didn’t want to lie to Harry. If, after hearing it, Harry didn’t want to be his friend anymore… well, that would be alright. Painful, but alright. Probably. Maybe. Sort of.

"I know it’s not you, Blair," Harry said firmly. "That doesn’t change anything. I still want to be friends. It’s not your fault."

The entire Tonks household melted on the spot, Blair included, though he tried to play it cool and only cried in his soul a little.

Blair kept sneaking glances at Harry, watching his face twist, crumple, and blink hard as he tried to hold it together. When it looked like too much, Blair quietly reached under the table and took his hand. Harry didn’t pull away.

"We have some photos," Andy said softly, standing up and returning with a worn, leather-bound album. She placed it gently in front of Harry. "Take all the time you need."

Harry opened the first page and gasped. A photo of his parents on their wedding day smiled up at him, James with his hopeless hair sticking in every direction, and Lily wearing a flower crown, laughing like the world hadn’t touched her yet. They waved at the camera, as if they knew someone very important would be watching one day.

"Oh," Harry whispered. "That’s really them… and the picture moves." His voice was full of wonder.

That sparked more quiet exposition about wizard photography. "Yeah," Blair said, giving Harry’s hand a reassuring squeeze. "That’s really them."

They said goodbye that evening, Harry quieter than usual. He thanked the Tonks politely and headed on his way. Blair watched him go, hoping he still wanted to be friends, just like he’d promised.

Blair really didn’t have to worry.

Over the next few months, Blair and Harry became inseparable. Wherever Blair went, Harry wasn’t far behind, usually looking slightly confused, slightly worried, and holding David.

Blair did most of the talking, spell-flashing, and dramatic entrances, while Harry quietly made sure no one got hexed by accident.

Blair taught Harry how to cheat at Uno with silent wandless spells, even though Harry couldn't really do it. While Harry taught Blair how to climb trees the Muggle way, which ended with Blair hanging upside down screaming, “This is why we invented brooms!”

They spent entire afternoons turning the backyard into a 'magical creature reserve,' which mostly involved chasing squirrels and naming them after obscure potion ingredients.

One time, they tried to brew a friendship potion using lemons, glitter, and three questionable herbs from the kitchen, David supervised and judged silently. Harry nearly sneezed himself into orbit, and Blair declared it a complete success. They made lemonade.

They built a secret fort behind the couch using bedsheets, sellotape, and pure determination, declaring it their official Ministry-approved Headquarters.

Blair insisted on giving them code names, he was 'Sparkle Doom' and Harry, to his dismay, was 'Agent Green Eyes.'

They spent entire afternoons crafting fake Hogwarts letters for random pigeons and trying to enchant toast to fly. Only Blair managed to do it, and the toast never came back.

Mom and Dad weren’t even surprised to see Harry anymore, he was basically furniture with better manners. He was always welcome.

The only problem was he couldn’t always come over, thanks to his absolutely awful Muggle relatives, who seemed to think basic human decency was optional.

But if anyone so much as looked at Harry wrong under Blair's care, Blair was already behind them whispering, “I know seventeen ways to curse you using soup ingredients.”

In short, they were best friends, ride or die, chaos-coded, and absolutely banned from three grocery stores.

Blair kept up his illegal brewing and Azkaban snack smuggling with increasing ease, proudly using every shady potion trick he’d invented, patented, or stolen from old books. Dad was happy about the books part, if only he knew the real agenda.

By July and Harry’s ninth birthday, Blair had a mini cake and a plushie prepped and ready. He surprised Harry at the park with birthday candles and frosting, and Harry ended up crying and thanking him over and over while Blair pretended not to cry too, blaming it on cake fumes.

It took Blair a moment to realize this was Harry’s first ever birthday gift, and his heart did that awful skipping-a-beat thing, not from excitement, but from pure, punch-you-in-the-soul sadness.

Life was way more fun with Harry in it. He looked healthier, happier, and totally at ease around Blair now, even when Blair started rambling about wand lore or tried to enchant their sandwiches to sing.

They had a few deep conversations about Blair’s whole mini-dark-lord situation, serious ones with no jokes and barely any glitter.

Harry promised again and again that he didn’t care and nothing would stop him from being Blair’s friend. In return, Blair swore on every chocolate frog card he owned that he’d never turn out like his sperm donor.

The years passed quickly, Nymphy graduated and started Auror training with enough flair to terrify her instructors, and soon Blair was holding his Hogwarts letter in hand.

Blair screamed so loudly when the owl dropped his Hogwarts letter that David fell off his shoulder and his dad dropped a pan of muffins. “I GOT IN! I GOT IN! THEY LET ME IN EVEN AFTER THE GLITTER INCIDENT!” Blair yelled, spinning in circles with the letter held above his head like it was the Holy Grail.

His parents pulled him into a hug, both grinning ear to ear. “We’re so proud of you, sweetheart!” Mom said, wiping a tear. “Now remember, no hexing professors.”

"I promise nothing." Blair said earning and angry smack from his mom.

"So many things to do! I need to write to Dumbledore, there’s no way David’s not coming with me, he’s an emotional support snake!" Blair declared. David hissed in smug approval.

"Go tell Harry!" Dad urged, clearly trying to prevent Blair from spiraling into a glitter-fueled monologue. Blair could tell his parents weren’t prepared for the full force of his excitement. Green Eyes it is, then.

Blair bolted out the door like he was chasing a snitch, waving his letter in the air.

Blair knew exactly where Harry lived and had perfected the art of getting his attention without alerting the Muggle trolls he called relatives. He snuck him food that way for a while.

Distractions, signals, and one time a flying note disguised as a very aggressive paper crane. He hadn’t seen Harry in a while, and the worry started creeping in, turning from mild concern to full dramatic dread faster than a potion left unattended.

He remembered the whole deal with the zoo and Dudley’s birthday disaster, but Harry’s birthday hadn’t arrived yet, so something felt off, and Blair did not like off. Off meant trouble.

But when Blair got to Privet Drive, the house looked suspiciously… empty. Weird. No Harry in the garden, no shady relatives glaring from behind curtains. Just letters. A lot of letters.

The whole house was bursting with them, like it had been attacked by a swarm of postal pixies. The street was covered in owl droppings, so much owl poop it looked like a cursed snowstorm had rolled through.

Blair let out a sharp laugh. Serves them right.

Then a very large figure turned around on the front step and stared at Blair. “’Scuse me,” the giant said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Yeh wouldn’ happen ter know when this lot’ll be back, would yeh?"

Blair blinked. "Nope. I… umm." He took a cautious step back. The man was massive and probably nice but also very stranger danger.

But the giant man spotted the Hogwarts letter in Blair’s hand and lit up like a Christmas tree at Zonko’s. “Aha! Knew yeh were one o’ ours! Look at that hair, and a snake on yer shoulder, no less!" he beamed, clearly thrilled.

"You must be Harry’s friend, then! Got yer letter today, did yeh? Headin’ to Hogwarts too?" the giant said with a big, warm grin. "Name’s Hagrid, well, Rubeus Hagrid, but everyone jus’ calls me Hagrid. I’m Keeper o’ Keys an’ Grounds at Hogwarts. Blimey, it’s good ter meet ya!"

Blair smiled, the recognition finally hitting him like a misfired Stupefy. "Ohhhhhhh! Do you know my sibling? Dora Tonks?" he asked, eyes wide with excitement.

"Yeh’re her brother?" Hagrid asked, lookin’ downright scandalized.

"Merlin’s beard, I used ter chase that one outta the Forbidden Forest at least once a week! Right menace, she is, always pokin’ round where she shouldn’t be, laughin’ while doin’ it too. Are yeh anythin’ like yer sister?"

Blair smiled sweetly. "No, I’m way worse."

"Merlin help us then," Hagrid muttered, half-laughing. "Well, it’s a good thing Harry’s got a mate like you. Tell yeh what, I’ll go find the lad and bring him round to the Tonks. Good people you are. We can all do the school shoppin’ together, nice an’ proper."

"Oh, Hagrid, that sounds amazing. You’ve got yourself a deal," Blair said, grinning as he shook the giant hand, disappearing up to the elbow and pretending it didn’t feel like shaking hands with a friendly boulder.

He just hoped he and Harry wouldn’t give Hagrid any additional trauma in Diagon Alley, but considering their combined energy, Blair figured the best-case scenario was only one shop exploding.

Chapter Text

To: Headmaster, Professor, Monarch of Hogwarts Dumbledore
CC: Deputy Headmistress McGonagall
BCC: Hagrid Rubeus (snake enthusiast)

Dear Supreme Wizard Overlord of Hogwarts,
It has come to my attention, via an extremely judgmental pamphlet, that students are only permitted to bring an owl, or a cat, or a toad to Hogwarts.
I won’t bore you with the full manifesto on why this is blatantly discriminatory against other majestic creatures (yet), but let’s just say the Furry Rebellion is on standby.
I’m writing to you today in good faith to formally request permission to bring my pet snake, David, to school.
Now, before you go all “no snakes in Hogwarts!” on me, let me explain:
David is not just a snake.
He is an emotional support serpent, and I am a person with many emotions, most of which require supervision.
David is extremely well-behaved.
All he does is hiss judgmentally, hum lullabies (in Parseltongue), and drape himself across my shoulders like a high-fashion accessory with opinions.
He’s basically a living feather boa with sass.
He also promised not to eat any students unless provoked, which is very responsible of him.
I’ve also consulted with Hagrid, who has kindly offered to snake-sit if needed.
He called David “a proper beauty” and “surprisingly low maintenance,” which is more than I can say for some Gryffindors.
If you do say no, I respect your authority and will of course, bring David anyway.
He’ll blend right in with the Slytherin décor.
Honestly, no one will notice unless he starts judging people too loudly.
In conclusion, please consider allowing me to bring David, certified emotional support noodle, to Hogwarts this year.
He already packed.

Yours in sparkles and polite defiance,
Blair O. Black, Head of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Glitter

Blair re-read his letter and gave a smug little nod, thoroughly pleased with himself. He'll send it off with the official reply that he would, in fact, be attending Hogwarts to everyone’s absolute despair.

"Blair, let me read that letter first, sweetheart. I need to check your spelling," Mom said gently.

Blair ducked and bolted toward the family owl. "Go, fly, before she catches you!" he hissed, chucking a snack at the tiny creature, which snatched it and took off with heroic urgency. Worked like a charm.

The owl was already flapping its way to Hogwarts by the time Mom caught up to him at the front of the house. "Blair! What was that for?!" she shouted, equal parts scandalized and out of breath.

"Oh, nothing, Mommy," he said with his biggest, most innocent blue eyes. "I just didn’t want to miss the deadline to reply. Also, I requested formal permission to bring David with me." The last part came out suspiciously quiet and suspiciously fast.

"You did what?!" she shrieked, eyes wide.

"Well, I can't leave him in the house! He’ll miss me too much, and I don’t want him dying of loneliness!" Blair exclaimed, as if this was the most logical tragedy ever conceived.

David hissed in agreement, clearly outraged at the mere suggestion of abandonment.

"You see? David will die without me," Blair declared.

"Sss, I will not die, your mom just doesn't break as fast as you to give me extra treats," David hissed with the smugness of a serpent who knew exactly how many biscuits he could guilt out of a child.

Blair gasped in horror. "You’re only with me for the extra treats?! Oh, David, the betrayal! I can’t believe you. I thought you loved me!" David rolled his eyes, entirely unimpressed, and flicked his tongue.

"Stop hissing, you two! What have you written? Why didn’t you want me to go over it?" Mom asked, eyes sharp as a hawk on espresso. She knew him far too well.

"Well… there were only four mentions of breaking the law. While low, I still feel it's inappropriate to confess to one's mother," Blair said diplomatically, just before a spatula came flying at his head.

He could practically hear the announcement: Ding ding, spatula number 324 is flying your way. Please fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the flight. Thank you for choosing Angry Mom Airways, always here to block your own airways upon planned mischief.

Blair ducked and sprinted to the basement, also known as Dad’s potions lab, where he dove behind a very confused and equally terrified Dad, using him as a human shield in this highly domestic warzone.

Luckily Mom had given up after a few minutes of premium-grade yelling, and he and Dad were officially off the hook. Dad still looked mildly confused, but took the screaming like a true champion, stirring his cauldron as if shrieking wives and dramatic children were part of the recipe.

An owl arrived early that morning from Hagrid, announcing he'd found Harry and they’d be stopping by later to head to Diagon Alley together.

Blair was absolutely buzzing, today was Harry’s birthday, and he’d prepared a painfully boring gift, but one he was sure Harry would appreciate with his whole emotionally neglected heart.

"Daddddd, when are they coming? When are we going? I wanna be ready with the candles and fireworks as soon as they knock on the door!" Blair whined.

"What fireworks?!" Dad asked, alarmed, already scanning the room for anything flammable and mentally preparing the fire extinguisher spell.

"Just the small magical pink ones I make, a complete illusion, no heat included," Blair promised sweetly. Dad just rolled his eyes and wandered off to check his blood pressure.

It wasn’t long before there was a knock on the door. "Harry!" Blair screamed, yanked the cake from the fridge, and positioned the candles with the speed and precision of a sugar-fueled gremlin on a mission.

He lit the candles wandlessly with a proud little grin, then flung the door open like a dramatic game show host revealing the grand prize.

"Happy birthday to youuuu, happy birthday to youuu, happy birthday dear Harrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy, happy birthday to youuuuuu!" Blair sang at full volume, dragging out each note with the passion of a theatre kid denied the spotlight.

David joined in from his shoulder with well-timed hisses. Technically, David had been preparing for this day his entire life.

Harry looked surprised but grinned from ear to ear, and Hagrid, clearly touched, joined in the singing, looking thoroughly satisfied that someone was finally giving Harry's birthday an acknowledgment.

"Well, make a wish!" Blair practically screamed, bouncing on his heels.

Harry closed his eyes and blew out the candles. He opened his mouth to speak, but Blair immediately cut him off. "You can’t tell me what the wish was or it won’t come true!" he scolded, wagging a finger with all the authority of a pint-sized birthday expert.

Harry immediately shut up, still grinning, while Blair gave him a proud nod, certain he'd just saved the wish from total collapse.

"Well, come in, we have a few minutes before the portkey. Let's eat the cake. Good to see you again, Hagrid," Mom said sweetly from the entrance, voice all warm and welcoming. You’d never guess she’d been screaming bloody murder an hour ago.

"Thank you, Blair, and you too, Andy and Ted. I think this is the best birthday so far." Hell yeah. Mission accomplished, Blair-style.

They headed to the kitchen for cake and tea while Harry filled Blair in on all the juicy gossip, the zoo incident, the letters, and the absolutely tragic lengths the Dursleys went to trying to stop him from coming to school.

"Ahh, they’re so terrible," Blair said with a dramatic sigh. "But I can’t imagine what went through Dumbledore’s head when you didn’t reply to the letter. Do you think he looked at McGonagall and said, ‘Send the owls. All of them’"

Hagrid gasped. "How did yeh know?"

The Tonks and Harry completely lost it, laughing their heads off while Blair basked in the chaos.

"But I get why the Dursleys don’t want you to go, they’ll be practically losing their cook, cleaner, and personal punching bag. Of course that vile Muggle was like, ‘Nope, you’re not going.’ Oh, Harry, I really hate them," Blair whispered, voice low so only Harry could hear.

Harry nodded in agreement. "Haven’t thought of it that way. Always figured they just wanted to stop me from being a ‘freak.’"

"Pleassse, as if they could ever be cool like us, they’re just jealous," Blair said, earning a laugh from Harry. "You’ve got just one more month to survive there, and then we’re off to Hogwarts! I’m so excited, I just sent a letter asking for permission to bring David."

"Really?! Oh, that would be nice if they let him in," Harry said, glancing at David, who gave a slow, approving nod before slithering over to Harry’s shoulder for some quality bonding time.

"You’ll help me with David a little? Not much, just sometimes if I’m in detention or something and can’t feed him," Blair asked sweetly, but before Harry could answer, Mom snapped from across the room.

"What detention?! You haven’t even started the term yet!" Mom snapped, eyes narrowing.

"Well, you know what they say, don’t eavesdrop on conversations if you don’t want to hear certain things," Blair said innocently, and Harry quickly jumped in to drag him out of the spatula blast zone.

"Okay, get ready, the portkey's about to go off," Dad said quickly, de-escalating the spatula violence with expert timing. Even Hagrid looked a little nervous.

They landed near Diagon Alley, Harry looking a bit green around the edges, poor thing, first time’s always the worst.

"Okay?" Blair asked, steadying Harry with one hand while the other hovered like he was ready to catch a full faint.

"Oh, yeah, just give me a minute," Harry said shakily, gripping Blair’s arm.

Once Harry looked a bit less green, he turned to Blair. "Of course I’ll help with David, whatever he needs," Harry promised, picking up right where they’d left off. Blair beamed. "Awesome, we can co-parent!"

Harry seemed to blush for some reason at that, but he nodded and smiled.

After a quick stop at Gringotts, where Harry discovered the wizarding banking system and, surprise, the fact that he did in fact have money, they were finally ready for the main event: shopping.

The list of supplies was long and boring, but Harry’s wide-eyed wonder made it worth it. "This is so amazing! I’ve never seen so many witches and wizards in one place. Wow, look at this broom!" he exclaimed, glued to a display like it was a holy relic.

Harry’s excitement was contagious, and Blair found himself gawking at everything right alongside him, laughing as they wandered. Meanwhile, the adults dashed around trying to wrangle school supplies like it was a full-contact sport.

They were in the bookstore, and Blair was excitedly showing Harry his favorite potion from the first-year potions book when a group of Aurors walked in. Blair went still for a moment, muscles tense, a deep-rooted distrust flashing through him. Even if Nymphy was in Auror training these days Aurors still scared him.

"Blair, what’s wrong?" Harry asked, noticing the sudden shift in his friend’s energy as Blair’s smile dropped faster than a wand hit by expelliarmus.

"Oh, you know, a little mistrust in the police. Those are Aurors, magic police. When I was living with my bio mom, we had a lot of raids and they were never nice, always kicking my toys around. As if a dark artifact would be hidden in a stuffed Puffskein!" Blair muttered, eyes narrowed and deeply offended on behalf of his childhood plushies.

Well, to be fair, he did think his rattle was a wand for a while, so maybe it wasn’t that far-fetched.

"But yeah, I get they were only doing their job. Bio mom was into a bunch of dark stuff," Blair shrugged, and Harry gave him a sympathetic look.

"Well, pretty sure they’re not here for you," Harry laughed, and it eased Blair more than he'd admit.

"Yeah, I know," Blair laughed back, casually dumping more books into his shopping bag with zero regard for weight limits. They were standing in line to pay when he heard the Aurors speaking nearby.

"Can’t get anything out of that witch Gretchen. She’s in league with Gossip Girl, selling potions down in Knockturn Alley. I can’t believe we’ve been tracking that dark Gossip witch for years with no lead. If Gossip Girl’s making those potions, she’s probably trying to recruit werewolves, but again, no progress today," the bigger Auror grumbled, voice low but sharp.

Holy Merlin’s tits, they were here for him! Technically. And honestly, was it so outrageous that someone might want to help the poor beasts for once?

"Powerful one, isn’t she?" the second Auror said. "Brews more potions than we can track, top quality too. Never been spotted going in or out of Gretchen’s shop, no matter how many stings we’ve set up."

Oh no. Blair was definitely going to be extra careful now. He had a strong concealment charm on him, but he’d triple-check it later just in case. For now, he attempted to look super innocent and failed spectacularly, judging by the weird look Harry shot him.

"Why is your face doing that?" Harry whispered, eyebrows climbing higher with every second of Blair’s suspiciously intense innocence.

"Doing what? I'm just a child buying books for his first year at Hogwarts, that I am. I have no idea what you’re talking about," Blair said, blinking way too hard. Harry and David both rolled their eyes in perfect, synchronized judgment.

"Okay, kids, think you can handle getting your school robes? We’ll go take care of the rest of the supplies on the list," Dad said, already herding Mom toward the door before she could refuse.

Harry and Blair nodded and headed toward Madam Malkin’s. "Oh, I forgot to give you your present! Remind me when we get back home," Blair said suddenly, gasping as the memory hit him mid-step.

Harry smiled. "You didn’t have to, but thank you. I’ll remind you." He poked Blair in the ribs, and Blair poked him right back with precision.

"Oh, head in without me, I’ll join you in a sec. I need to grab a treat for David, he’s hissing and the shop’s right here," Blair said, giving the snake a pat. Harry nodded and headed inside.

Treat acquired and a very happy David back on his shoulder, Blair stepped into Madam Malkin’s to join Harry in the robe shop.

"–imagine being a Hufflepuff, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?" was the first thing Blair heard as he stepped inside. Oh, perfect. His cousin was here.

His cousin is here?! Oh right, the plot is happening.

"I’d actually feel lucky to be a Hufflepuff. I just think they won’t accept me, I’m way too wild," Blair said with a grin as both boys turned to look at him. "My sibling told me they have the best parties. She was a Hufflepuff. Does Auror training now. Pretty good, if you ask me."

Harry was grinning, clearly glad to have Blair at his side. Meanwhile, Draco stared at Blair with wide eyes, as if a puzzle piece had just clicked into place.

"Blair?!" Draco shouted in pure shock and practically launched himself into a hug. To say Blair was surprised would be the understatement of the century, he just stood there, arms awkwardly hovering.

"Hey there, little cousin! It’s been forever since I saw you, look at you, all grown up to be a prat," Blair said, flashing a grin and immediately asserting dominance.

Draco looked at him with wide eyes and a grin. "I am not a prat! How dare you? Wow, it’s been so long since I saw you at one of our parties, I missed playing with you so much! But Mum said… well, she said we probably shouldn’t be friends since her sister took you in. I told her it’s not your fault, but still."

Draco was on a roll now. "If you get sorted into Slytherin, I could convince my parents that we should be friends!" he finished, all hopeful and breathless. Blair laughed, thoroughly entertained by the dramatic little peace treaty proposal.

"Well, it’s definitely a nice surprise seeing you too! I wasn’t sure if you remembered me. But I don’t need your parents to tell us if we can be friends or not. Also, if you start acting like a blood-purist, I probably won’t be, just not my vibe," Blair said with a cheeky smirk.

Draco’s face twisted in anger. "I see my parents were right, you are a blood traitor, just like Mum’s sister!" he snapped with a dramatic huff, spinning on his heel ready to storm out of the shop now that his robes were sorted, full pure-blood tantrum mode engaged.

Harry looked furious, one second away from launching himself at Draco, but Blair cut in with a bright grin and a dramatic twirl. "Yes, I am a blood traitor," Blair declared proudly, sparkles of defiance practically radiating off him.

"And yet you were fun once upon a time, we had fun. So if you ever get your head out of your own ass, you’re welcome to join in again," Blair called after him sweetly. "Oh! I can make five fireballs now. No wand! Wanna see?"

At that, Draco paled and bolted from the shop, clearly still haunted by the memory that Blair could do far too much magic for someone his size.

Draco did glance back for a split second, a flicker of something unsure on his face, before turning away and continuing to walk, shoulders stiff with pride and maybe a tiny trace of regret.

Madam Malkin just rolled her eyes at the whole scene. "On the stool, dear. I assume Hogwarts too, correct?" Blair nodded, hopping up with the elegance of someone who’d just staged a full theatrical performance and was now ready for costume fitting.

"Harry, can you hold our child? I need to get fitted," Blair said sweetly to a still-stunned Harry, casually handing over David like this was a perfectly normal co-parenting moment.

"Our child? Oh! David, yes, of course, come here, noodle," Harry said, taking the snake with gentle hands and that faint blush creeping back the moment Blair called David their child. At this point, David kinda was.

"That was your cousin? Wow, your family is so weird," Harry said, cradling David while watching Blair get measured.

"Tell me about it, way too many family relatives in Azkaban," Blair mumbled, only to yelp when Madam Malkin accidentally jabbed him with a needle. "S-sorry, dear. Hand slipped," she said, not quite meeting his eye.

Yeah, she’d probably done the math, Draco as his cousin and half the family tree rotting in Azkaban.

"Oh, that’s cool. If I tried to do what you’re doing, people would be bleeding to death," Blair said cheerfully, making Harry burst out laughing.

Madam Malkin did not laugh, she finished measuring at record speed and promptly pushed both boys out of her shop once the robes were ready with the grace of someone regretting her career choices.

"So yeah, Draco’s mom used to be a Black before she married a Malfoy, we’re cousins, so Draco is a cousin. First cousin once removed, I think," Blair explained, casually untangling the family circle-tree.

"Well, I don’t think I’ll be friends with him, he was saying really rude things before you came in," Harry mentioned. Yeah, that tracked. Classic Draco, all pure-blood pride and zero social skills.

"Don’t mind him, you’ve got the cool side of the Black family at your side," Blair grinned, throwing an arm around Harry’s shoulder. Harry blushed again. What was up with him today? Must be the heat. Definitely the heat.

They regrouped with Hagrid and his parents and headed to what Blair proudly declared the main event of the shopping spree, Ollivanders.

Harry went in first to get his wand and came out about ten minutes later holding the famous eleven-inch phoenix feather core, twin to his DNA giver's wand, no big deal.

He did look a little baffled and maybe worried that Blair would be angry about him getting a wand similar to his bio Voldy. Don’t worry, Harry, the pleasure is all yours.

Then it was Blair’s turn, and he stepped into Ollivanders with the confidence of someone who fully intended to leave with something dangerous, and possibly illegal.

"Aha, and who do we have here?" Ollivander asked, glancing between the Tonks and Blair. "I remember your sister, of course, yes... wasn’t aware you had another child, dear Andy. Come, come inside, I think I have just the thing," he murmured, already vanishing into the shelves with the excitement of someone about to unleash destiny.

"Ten inches, cherry wood, unicorn hair core, similar to the one Ted, your dad, has. Come on, give it a try," Ollivander said as he handed it over. Blair took hold of it, half-expecting fireworks and half-expecting it to explode purely for dramatic effect.

As soon as his hand closed around the wand, Blair nearly dropped to his knees. Too much power, wild, burning, overwhelming. It surged through him like a tidal wave, and for a split second, he was sure he could set the entire Alley ablaze with a flick of his wrist. He let go with a sharp scream, the wand clattering to the floor.

Dad and Mom rushed to him, worry written all over their faces, and only then did Blair realize the entire shop was shaking. "I-It was so much," he whispered, hands trembling as the magic still buzzed under his skin.

Ollivander stared at him with wide eyes. "Oh, my dear, so powerful. I’ve never felt so much magic in one child. What to do, what to do... Tell me, what have your accidental magic bursts been like?" he asked, voice equal parts curious and reverent.

"Oh, I didn’t really have any. I just... do magic with intention, kind of. Always wandless," Blair said, then casually summoned his signature pink lights, letting them dance around his fingers. It was the trademark trick from the House of Blair, and Ollivander looked like he might faint.

"Well, I’ll be damned... must be some sort of magical inheritance, could it be?" Ollivander asked, eyes narrowing with fascination. Mom nodded slowly. "We’re not sure what kind," she said, her voice soft but steady.

"Oh, I wonder... the Japanese have a saying for that, non-traditional wands for people similar to you. Wand sensitivity, they call it. I do wonder," Ollivander muttered, eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Give me a minute," he added, disappearing into the back once more with the energy of someone on the brink of a magical breakthrough.

"Oh damn, what if I can’t have a wand? Will they let me in Hogwarts?" Blair said, already spiraling fast, the pink lights around his fingers flickering in full panic mode.

Ollivander returned a minute later holding a wand made out of a deep red wood. "Wow! That’s so pretty!" Blair exclaimed, eyes wide with delight, and Ollivander actually giggled, clearly charmed by the chaos gremlin in his shop.

"We don’t choose a wand by its looks, but it might be a good sign," Ollivander said thoughtfully. "This is a wand I crafted a few years ago. Before I could add a core, the wood refused, wouldn’t let me complete it. I was baffled. Never had a wand act that way. It’s not really a wand, technically," he added, setting it gently in front of Blair.

"I think it might’ve been waiting for you. Maybe it’ll sync with your magical inheritance. Also, cherry wood, eleven inches. Very loyal wood, never misses its target. While you’ve clearly got a lot of raw power in you, this one might help direct it. Go ahead, try it," Ollivander said, eyes twinkling with anticipation.

Blair took it and immediately felt all bubbly inside, no burning this time. He gave it a swish and summoned his lights, but now the power flowed through the wand instead of just his body. It was defined, focused. The lights came out crisper, brighter, more vivid than they had ever been.

"Wow!" was all Blair could manage, eyes wide as the shimmering lights danced perfectly from his wand, as if his magic had finally learned manners.

"Seems I was right, the wood took a liking to you," Ollivander said, watching the display with a smile, as if witnessing a sacred wedding.

Blair turned around to see his parents smiling proudly. They paid Ollivander and stepped outside, where Harry and Hagrid were waiting, Harry holding David, who looked thoroughly unimpressed as usual.

"I got a stick!" Blair announced to a very confused Harry. After a quick explanation, all Harry could say was, "Yeah, that sounds exactly like something that would happen to you. Fits you," and Blair beamed.

They got back home around 8 p.m., the sun already starting to set. Before Harry and Hagrid could leave, Blair dashed upstairs to grab Harry’s birthday present. Hagrid had gotten him an owl, tough competition, but Blair still hoped his gift would hit just the right spot.

"Here you go, Harry, happy birthday! This is from Mom and Dad as well," Blair said, handing over the neatly wrapped package with a proud little grin.

"Oh, thank you!" Harry said with a smile. He opened the present to find a bunch of clothes, four sets of pants, two pairs of jeans, and five cool-looking shirts. Blair had helped pick them out, and it showed.

"We wanted you to have some cloths of your own and not whatever that pig-" Blair got a look from his mom, "Ummm cousin gave you." He corrected himself and finished.

Harry looked at the clothes with wide eyes. "Wow, thank you so much, I-" he started, but tears began to form in his eyes before he could finish, his voice catching with something soft and shaken.

"Thank you, Andy and Ted, really, and you too, of course, Blair!" Harry said, then pulled him into a hug. Blair was pretty sure it was the first time Harry had hugged him, so of course, he hugged back, extra tight, just in case Harry needed it.

"I’m glad you liked it! I know it’s more practical and less fun, but I really wanted you to have your own stuff," Blair said, and Harry nodded, clutching the clothes as if they were priceless treasures.

They parted ways then, and Hagrid walked off with Harry, taking him back to the awful Muggles. Blair watched them go, already plotting ways to make the next month fly by faster.

"How am I going to survive thirty days until the term starts?! I’m going to die from anticipation," Blair complained, dragging each word out with the agony of someone truly suffering from Too Much Waiting Syndrome.

"The real question is how we are going to survive," Dad said, earning a laugh and a kiss from Mom, who looked both fond and slightly terrified.

"EWWW, don’t share saliva next to me," he said to them, earning a cheeky grin from Mom and a very deliberate kissy noise from Dad.

"Oh, soon enough, unfortunately, you’ll be thinking only about that, with some Gryffindor girl who’ll give me a heart attack the moment I meet her," his mom teased. Blair rolled his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t fall out.

"Never! Ugh, that’s gross," Blair insisted, scandalized. His parents just laughed, saying he was too young to understand. And honestly, he was, he hadn’t even made it to puberty the first time around, so maybe they were right. But right now? Absolutely not.

All he needed was David and Harry, everyone else was optional outside of his family.

Eventually, thirty days did pass. Blair spent them packing and unpacking and repacking his trunk, way too excited to sit still. His clothes for the train ride were already laid out and waiting, he was definitely wearing the unicorn hoodie and some jeans. Obviously.

They’d managed to convince Harry’s uncle to drop him off at their place a day before the train, meaning one more blissful day without the Dursleys, and no need for anyone to drive him to King’s Cross. A win-win, truly.

When Harry arrived, Blair immediately dragged him to his room with wild excitement and proudly showed off the bed he’d made on the floor using a mattress, for their very first sleepover. The moment was sacred.

"But you can take my bed if you want," Blair said with a smile. Harry just shook his head, already dropping his bag beside the mattress with a quiet kind of gratitude.

"It’s alright, I don’t mind. Honestly, staying at your place is incredible and definitely better," Harry said. Blair nodded, trying to play it cool, but inside he was glowing brighter than his pink lights.

"I don’t know how I’m going to fall asleep tonight, I have way too much energy," said Blair, practically vibrating with excitement. Harry laughed, already bracing for a very long night.

"I know, but I’m not messing with your mom, I’ll pretend I’m sleeping if I need to," Harry whispered, eyes wide with mock fear. Blair snorted, fully respecting that survival instinct.

"Yeah, definitely don’t want to invoke a spatula incident. Oh! Look at what I’m wearing tomorrow, and I’m braiding my hair in one braid, keeping it classic. David is a must on my shoulder. Oh! Did I tell you Dumbledore approved David coming? Here, look at the letter I got back, it’s so funny," Blair rambled, already digging through his drawer with the energy of a wizarding fashion hurricane.

Blair dug up the letter and shoved it into Harry’s hands with triumph. "Read it. It’s pure gold. The man wrote like David was a respected magical diplomat or something."

Dear Blair O. Black, Head of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Glitter,

While I wasn’t able to understand everything that you wrote even though it was indeed written in English, I will allow David the pet snake to attend Hogwarts with you.
Please make sure to bring everything he might need.

Best regards,
Headmaster, Professor, Monarch of Hogwarts Dumbledore

Harry read over the letter, laughing. "Just what kind of letter did you send to our headmaster?!" he asked, half-amused, half-concerned. Blair shrugged, smug. "A persuasive one. And that’s a top secret, can’t have Mom finding out."

What followed was the best sleepover ever. They giggled and gossiped about the Dursleys, had a legendary pillow fight, and were mid-laughter when Blair’s mom opened the door and gave them the look. "Time to sleep, boys." Blair whispered, “Retreat,” and dove under the blanket.

Blair couldn’t fall asleep for a while, too full of excitement and sugar and future magic, but eventually, he did. Curled up with David nearby and Harry just a few feet away, he drifted off, wishing morning would hurry up already.

In the morning, Blair woke up to a messy-haired Harry practically bouncing on top of him. "Come on, wake up, we’re going to Hogwarts today!!" he shouted, grinning so wide it looked like his face might split.

Blair opened one eye, and the moment he saw Harry, he shot upright. "Oh my Merlin, it’s happening. Everybody stay calm," he said in his be deadpan office voice. Harry snorted, not getting the reference but humoring him anyway, and both boys scrambled to get ready at lightning speed.

Blair was dressed and packed, David curled proudly on his shoulder as he headed down to breakfast, hair still loose and wild. "Dad, please braid it for me the way I like," he asked sweetly, plopping down with the confidence of a prince summoning his royal stylist.

Dad gave him a kiss on the head and started working on the braid with practiced hands. "What are you going to do at Hogwarts without me?" he asked, half-teasing, half-genuinely worried.

"Oh, I can always do a decent job braiding it, I’ll just do it myself, or teach Harry. Worst case, I’m sure one of the girls knows how," Blair said confidently, already imagining himself holding impromptu hair tutorials in the common room.

"Oh, shush, you. Let me feel useful," his dad laughed. Blair hugged him tightly. "You don’t need to be useful, you just need to be my dad," he said, voice soft as he buried his face in his shoulder.

"I’m going to miss you so much," Blair said, his voice muffled against Dad’s shoulder. "I know, love. I’ll miss you too," Dad replied, hugging him back just as tightly.

"Do I get a hug too?" a voice called from the door. "Nymphy!" Blair screamed, rushing toward her and nearly tackling her with excitement. "What are you doing here?!" he asked, clinging to her as she laughed and ruffled his already messy braid.

"Oh, you know, managed to get some time off to eat breakfast with you all. Won’t be able to come with you to King’s Cross, but it’s something," Nymphy said with a grin.

He gave his sibling a huge hug, clinging tight. "You be good and enjoy, okay? Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. Only you know that, right?" she whispered, and Blair nodded, eyes a little shinier than before.

He looked up and saw Mom crying. "I can’t believe you’re going to Hogwarts already," she said, voice trembling as she joined the hug. Through all of it, Harry stood by the stairs, watching with teary eyes and a soft smile.

Blair realized Harry was probably feeling left out or sad he didn’t have something like this. "Oh no you don’t, mister!" he shouted, lunging toward him and pulling Harry straight into what instantly became a chaotic, warm group hug, no escape, full love.

"Okay, let’s stop before my eyes get red, I wanna look pretty today. Let’s eat," Blair begged, pulling away and fanning his face. Harry just rolled his eyes, already used to the daily dose of Blair-level priorities.

"You’re always pretty, Blair," Harry said offhandedly, then froze a moment later, eyes wide. "I-I mean you look, you know, I mean-" Blair cut him off with loud laughter.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, please try not to feed my ego any more," Blair teased, smug grin fully activated, though he absolutely accepted the compliment and stored it in the vault forever.

Mom and Dad exchanged a look, then started giggling like middle schoolers before digging into breakfast. Even Nymphy shot Blair a teasing look he didn’t quite understand, which meant it was probably illegal and/or embarrassing.

Harry ate quietly, his cheeks red, and they stayed that way throughout the entire breakfast as he refused to make eye contact with anyone, especially Blair.

Soon his parents and Harry were rolling their trunks through King’s Cross, heading toward the infamous Platform 9¾. Blair hated math, but that was one fraction he’d take every day.

"Blair, breathe. I know you’re excited, but breathe," Harry nudged him. Damn, was he turning purple again? He smiled at Harry. "Breath taken." Harry rolled his eyes.

Blair suddenly remembered something serious he needed to say. "Listen, Harry, I’m serious for a minute. I know once people hear the name Black, they’ll put two and two together. So far, everyone’s assumed I’m a Tonks when I’m with my parents but… my official name is Blair Black, and there’s no escaping that at the Sorting Ceremony."

"Okay… and so what?" Harry asked, suspiciously narrowing his eyes.

"So… I’ll understand if you want some distance. No harm done. I get it. I don’t want to stand in the way of you making friends," Blair said, only cringing a little. He meant it, really, and yet didn’t want it.

Harry smacked him, lightly but with purpose. "Get your head out of your ass, will you? If they can’t be friends with you because some evil wizard you never even met made you, then I don’t want them as friends," Harry said stubbornly, eyes blazing with that quiet Gryffindor fire.

"Really?"

"Really. Now roll that trunk, I don’t want to be late," Harry said, and that was that. No drama, no hesitation. Just Harry being Harry. Solid as ever.

They almost made it to the platform when a sea of redheads blocked their path. Oh Merlin, it had to be the Weasleys. There was no other explanation for that much gingers in one concentrated area.

"Molly!" his mom called out, waving enthusiastically, apparently she knew the woman. "Oh, Andy! Long time no see, I thought your daughter finished school," Molly replied, bustling over.

"Oh, we’ve got seven more years of that with our little one," Mom said, pointing to Blair. "Hey," Blair said with a little wave, and his mom gave him the look, clearly unimpressed by the minimal effort.

"Ahh, I mean, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am," Blair corrected himself quickly, earning an approving nod from his mom and a barely hidden grin from Harry.

"It’s nice to meet you too, sweetie. Oh, I didn’t know you had a son Andy, so lovely! Same year as Ron, I take it? That’s my youngest. Oh, an interesting year indeed. Takes after your side of the family, I see," Mrs. Weasley said not unkindly.

Though Blair was pretty sure she meant the signature Black bone structure and the general evil vibe they radiated on default.

Mrs. Weasley and Mom dove into conversation, completely ignoring the line of restless children waiting beside the platform. "Oh god, this is gonna take ages, it’s like when she meets a friend at the grocery store and we get stuck there for hours," Blair groaned. Dad nodded solemnly beside him.

Eventually, the moms parted ways and the Weasley kids, Blair, and Harry headed off in different directions. For now.

"Okay, sweetheart, please, please, please don’t get in trouble. Or at least don’t get caught. I get a heart attack with every letter I get from Hogwarts," Mom said, clutching his face like she was preparing to send him into battle.

"I promise not to get caught, Mom," he said with a grin, earning himself a swift smack to the arm and a muttered "Merlin help me" from his exasperated mother.

"We’ll miss you, Blair. Keep yourself safe and healthy, and please write as much as you can," his dad said next, pulling him into a warm hug that smelled like peppermint tea and overprotective parenting. Blair loved it.

"I will, I promise," Blair said, already starting to cry again, missing them before he’d even left. He’d grown to love them so much, and in all the excitement over Hogwarts, he hadn’t really realized how hard it would be to be away from Mom and Dad.

"You keep him safe, Harry," his dad added, voice gentle but firm. "I promise," Harry said seriously, standing a little straighter like he'd just been knighted.

"Okay, okay, let’s go find a place to sit or I’m staying here forever," Blair said, tugging Harry’s sleeve and waving one last dramatic goodbye to his parents as they stepped toward the train.

Chapter Text

They found an empty space for the trunks, and Blair levitated them wandlessly and nonverbally, earning a lot of looks; he shrugged, mouthing “oops” with the confidence of someone who absolutely wasn’t sorry.

"Oh hey, look, this one's empty, let's sit," Harry said, dragging him into the compartment. They sat down, and Blair felt excitement bubbling up again.

"Can you believe it? Hogwarts! I really hope we end up in the same house," he said, and Harry nodded with that soft little smile.

"Which one do you think you'll-" Harry began, but the door slid open with a clatter. "Hey, would you mind if I sit here with you? Everywhere else is full," said a ginger boy, and Blair was one hundred percent sure this was Ron Weasley in the freckled, hand-me-down-wrapped flesh.

"Yeah, of course!" Blair scooted to his right so he’d be facing Harry, leaving room for Ron to slide in beside him with all the grace of a collapsing bookshelf.

"Thanks! I'm Ron, Ron Weasley. It seems our mums know each other," Ron said.

"Yeah, I thought they’d never stop talking, gahh," Blair complained, throwing his head back dramatically, which made both boys burst out laughing.

"I'm Harry, Harry Potter," Harry introduced himself, and Ron lit up like a Christmas tree at Honeydukes. "And I'm Blair-"

"Are you really?!" Ron cut him off. Rude. But maybe for the best. Blair paused mid-sentence, blinked, then caught Harry’s eye and gave him a look that screamed, guess I’m going incognito now, and Harry just shrugged like, be my guest, mystery boy.

Harry just nodded. "Umm, yeah." Ron nodded back, clearly trying to act cool but failing miserably, his eyes were doing that sparkle thing people got when meeting a Chocolate Frog card in real life.

"And you two know each other?" he asked, gesturing between Blair and Harry with the subtlety of a troll in a tutu.

"Yeah, we live close to each other, we've been best friends since we were eight," Harry answered. Best friends? What an upgrade. Blair nudged his foot with a smug little smirk, and for some reason, Harry turned red.

"Wow, cool! I didn’t really have any magical friends outside my brothers, and they can be a lot," Ron said. Harry nodded, probably thinking about Dudley and realizing Ron’s chaos was the fun kind.

"Yeah, so it’s you and the twins?" Blair asked, already bracing for sibling-induced trauma stories.

"I wish! I have five brothers, and a little sister!" Ron explained, dragging surprised giggles out of the boys as Blair mouthed 'Merlin help him' at Harry, who nearly choked trying not to laugh.

The door slid open again and a pair of identical ginger heads peeked in. "Hey, Ronniekins, we’re heading up front, very important business with Lee Jordan. You’ll be alright here?" one asked, eyeing Harry and Blair like they were evaluating backup dancers for a prank performance.

Blair guessed Harry didn’t really get a chance to introduce himself to Fred and George this time.

"You're Andy's son?" one of them asked, and Blair nodded. "Yeah, I'm Blair-"

"This is Harry Potter!" Ron suddenly blurted like it was breaking news. Guess his own stealth mode was still going strong. The twins' eyes widened in perfect sync.

"Really? Wow, so cool," one of them said, clearly trying to play it casual while very much not being casual.

"Do you remember? You know…" the other asked, trailing off with a vague hand wave, and Harry shook his head quickly, face tightening just a bit.

"Umm, no, I just remember a bunch of green light," Harry said quietly. The three Weasley brothers looked properly baffled.

"Wow. Pretty cool," one of the twins finally said, clearly unsure if that was an appropriate response but committing to it anyway.

"You know what I heard?" one of the twins, Blair had absolutely no clue which one, asked eyes gleaming with gossip potential.

"What?" Harry asked, already expertly trained in the art of gossip by Blair, who looked far too proud of his influence.

"The son of You-Know-Who is starting this year, a Black. Really dark family. Everybody says he’s insanely strong," he said, lowering his voice like it was top-secret intel.

"So let us know if you need any help against him. Probably a git." Blair blinked, smiled sweetly, and decided not to ruin the moment by saying surprise, it's me.

Harry winced and looked up, only to find Blair grinning like Christmas came early. "Do you think he has horns? I heard he has a tail," Blair chimed in.

"Don’t know, if we see him we’ll let you know," they promised, and Blair gave them a thumbs up with the innocent glee of someone fully aware he was the final boss they were talking about.

"Okay, bye now, we have to go," twin one said.

"Don't do anything we wouldn't do," twin two added.

"But actually, don’t do anything we would do, there’s a small grey area in between, stick to that." And with that, they vanished, leaving the three boys alone in the compartment and Blair deeply inspired by the concept of morally flexible mischief zones.

"You're unbelievable," Harry told Blair, who was now laughing hard enough to shake the seat while Ron paid them no mind. "I can't help it, that was hilarious. Hey Ron, what's your take on Voldy's son?" Blair asked, grinning wide and fully committed to gossip on incognito.

Ron gasped. "You said his name! And in a really weird way," he said, looking scandalized but also a little impressed. "Well, umm," he continued, "I don’t really know... must be scary, right? And ugly too. But who knows, it’s just a rumor. Maybe he’s not even coming to Hogwarts and we’re all worrying for nothing."

Harry looked Ron in the eyes. "Ugly is the last thing-" he started, before Blair gave him a quick nudge once again. Come on, Harry, this is pure gold, his expression practically screamed, and Harry sighed like a man who knew he was enabling evil and did it anyway.

"Yeah, I guess we’ll have to wait for the Sorting Ceremony," Blair said with a suspiciously innocent smile, and Ron nodded, completely unaware he was sitting next to the plot twist.

"Wait, is that a snake?!" Ron asked.

"Oh yes! This is David," Blair said proudly as David curled down into his hands, showing off his shiny green scales like he was on a runway.

"I got permission from Dumbledore to bring him. He’s a sweetie," Blair promised, while David hissed softly, clearly offended Ron hadn’t recognized his superb serpent aura. Ron looked at David, confused.

"No really, he’s just a green garden snake," Blair promised with a grin. Well, David did hatch at Grimmauld Place, so he’d probably absorbed some Black family mumbo jumbo, which only made him more fun, in Blair’s opinion.

"Been with me since I was five," Blair said proudly.

"How’d you convince your parents to get you a snake when you were five?" Ron asked, clearly impressed. Blair smirked. "I didn’t. Found him in our living room and claimed him. They didn’t get a say. He chose violence and so did I."

Blair saw that wasn’t quite enough of an explanation for Ron, so he added some extra exposition. "Oh, well, one day he just slithered into the house and I realized I could understand him, so we opened a choir and started singing together," Blair said with a perfectly straight face, because that was what happened and he saw no reason to make it sound less unhinged.

Ron looked a little spooked by that. "You can speak to snakes? Well, that’s pretty cool. What’s David saying right now?" he asked, leaning forward with a mix of curiosity and mild fear.

Blair tilted his head, listening dramatically. "Ssss, that rat of his is vile!" David hissed, and Harry, who could also understand him, raised an eyebrow.

"Umm, no offense, but he really doesn’t like your rat. And by the way, are we even allowed to bring rats?? I wrote a whole ass letter to Dumbledore, had to run a full-blown stealth mission so Mom wouldn’t catch me, it was basically a competitive sport at some point," Blair said, thoroughly offended by the double standards.

Ron looked shocked. "You're right! But my brothers always brought him to school, maybe it’s only allowed for second years and up? Well, worst case, I’ll just ask the twins to look after him," he said.

"That rat will be dead in two days," Harry said dryly, making all of them burst out laughing, except the rat, who twitched like he suddenly felt very targeted.

But wait a minute, isn’t this… it is! Peter Pettigrew, the little shit responsible for his brother’s sentence in Azkaban. Oh, Blair was going to kill that rat, but not before parading him around as living, squeaking proof. A plan was already forming in his mind.

"What house do you think you’ll be in?" Ron asked, glancing between them.

"Oh, I don’t really know. I guess both of my parents were in Gryffindor. Honestly, I just hope to be in the same house as Blair," Harry said, and Blair lit up so hard he practically became a human Lumos spell.

"My sibling just finished, and she was a Hufflepuff. Honestly, I don’t think they’ll accept me there, I’m a little... well, never mind. Ravenclaw is definitely out of the question for me," Blair laughed, brushing it off, while Harry frowned, looking just a bit angry on his behalf.

"You're really smart!" Harry declared at Blair.

"Well, not the book kind, honestly," Blair replied with a shrug, and Ron nodded in agreement. "Me neither. All of my brothers were, or are, in Gryffindor so far, my whole family really," Ron added seriously, like the Hat wouldn’t even dare try putting him anywhere else.

"Could you imagine if they put me in Slytherin?" Ron asked, scandalized.

"Well, finally they’ll have a face that doesn’t look inbred, it'll be a win for them," Blair said with a perfectly innocent tone, making Ron burst out laughing so hard he nearly fell off the seat.

"But seriously though, I have like a sixty-five percent chance of ending up in Slytherin. Harry, you’ll still love me? Even if I’m in green and silver?" Blair asked dramatically, throwing a hand over his forehead.

Harry’s face went a bit red. "Of course I’ll still l-lo- I’ll still be your friend! No matter what!" he promised, voice wobbling just slightly. And Blair absolutely swooned. Harry was too good. Ron, meanwhile, looked a little put off.

"Umm, I guess... you are funny and nice. I don’t think you’d like it there, honestly," Ron said, and Blair blinked, a little surprised the argument was actually kind of solid coming from a boy who was really prejudiced.

"Also, Blair, your math skills suck, so it’s probably not sixty-five percent. Your soul can still be saved," Harry said jokingly, and Blair just rolled his eyes like a child who’d already accepted his fate as the family disappointment.

"Anything from the trolley, dears?" an older witch called as she rolled a massive cart stacked with snacks ahead of her. Hell yeah, Blair had his Gossip Girl money ready. "Yes, please! Two of each!" he said, handing over the money. Ron stared at him with wide eyes.

"You really are hungry, huh?" Ron asked. "Well yeah, I am, but don’t be silly, this is for all of us, my treat," Blair said proudly, because bribing new friends was absolutely on brand for him. Harry and Ron beamed, though Ron looked a little uncomfortable.

"You don’t have to," Ron said, shifting awkwardly, clearly torn between good manners and the overwhelming power of free snacks.

"Oh, this is a gift from my dad. He definitely wants to fill me up with sugar and see if Hogwarts will still be standing," Blair said with a wink at both boys, making Harry snort.

"Awesome, thank you, Blair!" Ron said and immediately started digging in. Harry grabbed his favorite Chocolate Frog and joined in, smiling at Blair.

They chatted and enjoyed the ride for a while until the door slid open once again. "Hello, have you seen a toad by any chance? Neville here lost it and we’ve been looking for it."

And just like that, hello to you, Hermione Granger, the one and only, arriving with the urgency of someone about to run the entire school by Wednesday.

Blair made a mental note to keep his distance from her for at least the first year, Merlin forbid she make him open a book, and he knew she could.

Beside her stood who had to be Neville: chubby, a little scared, and very clearly distressed over his missing toad, radiating anxious side quest energy.

"So, have you seen it?" the girl asked. She looked just like Blair imagined, bushy hair, large front teeth, but what the book never prepared him for was the sheer self-assurance radiating off her, and Blair meant that in the best, slightly fearful way possible.

"No, sorry," Harry and Ron mumbled, but Blair was already standing up, dramatically brushing crumbs off his clothes like he was about to lead a rescue mission for the Royal Toad of Britain.

"Don’t worry, I’ll get your toad in a sec, all you need is a little Accio and some good old-fashioned detection work," Blair said confidently. "What’s the sweet toad’s name?" he asked, already cracking his knuckles like a magical bloodhound.

Neville looked up with wide, worried eyes. "A-are you sure? You know this spell? I-I don’t want Trevor to get hurt. His name is Trevor," he said shakily, clutching his empty toad box.

Hermione looked at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. "That’s a fifth-year spell. I read about it, you know. You can’t just use it like that," she said, rolling her eyes with peak eleven-year-old authority. Welp, maybe you can’t, Blair thought, offended on behalf of his magical prowess. Rude.

"Accio Trevor," Blair said, letting his magic ripple through the train like a polite search party. He felt the toad’s presence in a compartment with some older students and gently summoned him, making sure the little guy didn’t bump into anything on the way.

"See? He can’t do it, and without a wand nonetheless, ridiculous-" Hermione started, just as Trevor came floating gently through the air and landed in Blair’s hands like a slimy little feather.

"Is this your lost sweetie?" Blair asked, holding out Trevor to a very shocked Neville and Hermione. Neville nodded quickly.

"Trevor!" he said, taking the toad gently. "Thank you! Thank you so much, I was so worried," he added, beaming with pure relief while Trevor just blinked, unbothered by the whole magical kidnapping.

"But how-?" Ron asked, staring at Blair like he’d just casually grown wings and started speaking Gobbledegook.

"Oh, Mom thinks it’s some sort of magical inheritance, but we don’t really know. As for the spell, my sibling taught me a bunch of them," Blair said with a shrug. "Don’t worry, I promise not to use my power wisely. Really, I shouldn’t be trusted with magic at all."

Only Harry laughed, already knowing exactly what Blair was like. He looked at him with that same quiet wonder he always had whenever Blair did magic, like it was the coolest thing in the world and Blair had personally invented it.

"Well, I apologize for the disbelief," Hermione said primly. "I’m Hermione Granger," she added, holding out her hand. Blair shook it, already forgiving her, her face when Trevor actually came flying in had been worth every second.

"Neville. Longbottom," Neville said officially, and Blair shook his hand too. "I’m Blair, and those are Ron Weasley and Harry Potter," he added casually, leaving out his family name on purpose. For the plot, obviously.

"Are you really?" Hermione asked Harry, who looked like this whole 'Harry Potter' thing was already getting very old.

He nodded, and Hermione immediately launched into a rapid-fire list of every textbook she’d ever read that mentioned him, quoting titles like she was preparing for a pop quiz no one else studied for.

Neville slowly gravitated toward their compartment and eventually sat down while Hermione was still going strong. Oh yeah, Blair was definitely sticking to his plan, he could not handle that level of academic energy without risking spontaneous combustion.

"Is that a snake?" Neville asked over Hermione, who was now bickering with Ron about something neither of them would win.

"Yeah, his name is David," Blair replied, as David basked in the attention like a scaly diva. "Yeah yeah, you’re beautiful and amazing," Blair hissed back to him, and David gave a smug little coil.

Neville’s eyes went wide. "You’re a P-Parselmouth!" he said, clearly shocked, and Blair nodded. "Pretty cool, right? Me and David have been friends since I was a toddler and he was a young hatchling," he said proudly, petting David like the majestic danger noodle he was.

"You had a snake as a pet when you were a toddler?" Neville asked, clearly confused, and Blair nodded proudly like that was the most normal childhood milestone ever.

Harry scoffed from his seat. "Blair is the most random person I know," he said sincerely.

"Ohhh, you say the sweetest things to me," Blair cooed, fluttering his lashes just to make it worse, and Harry turned red again. Blair noticed he’d been doing that a lot lately and briefly considered opening a book to research how to help him. Maybe. If it didn’t involve too much reading.

Honestly, it was kinda cute. Wait, cute? Never mind. Abort line of thought. For the first time, Blair felt his own cheeks go red and silently prayed whatever weird blushy affliction Harry had wasn’t contagious.

Neville watched the exchange with mostly shock.

"Did you hear about You-Know-Who’s son coming to Hogwarts this year?" Hermione asked. "I read all about it in the same book Harry appeared in." Wait, really? Blair blinked. He somehow made it into a book? He thought his existence was all just pure-blood gossip whispered over cursed tea.

Neville nodded. "Gran told me to stay away from him at all costs," he said, and for the first time, Blair felt a real sting in his chest. Until now, it had all been jokes and fun, but hearing that people were being warned to avoid him, by actual parental decree, hit different.

Harry gave his hand a quick squeeze, still not blowing Blair’s cover. Nobody seemed to notice the quiet exchange between them, but Blair did, and it meant more than he’d ever admit out loud.

"I heard he has horns and a tail," Blair said, slipping into his usual propaganda voice, but his heart wasn’t in it this time, the joke landing softer than usual, more defense mechanism than punchline.

"You’re all being ridiculous. Just because his dad was evil doesn’t mean he is too," Hermione said, surprising Blair enough to blink. Huh. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, for a person who liked the academics and probably color-coded her soul.

"Say that when he comes to drink your blood at night," Ron said, and Blair burst out laughing, glad someone else was finally contributing to the dramatic chaos.

"He’s Voldemort’s son, not a vampire," Blair said, still laughing, which made everyone else cringe at the name.

"He’ll be in Slytherin for sure," Ron added confidently. Well, maybe, Blair thought. He didn’t know. Nobody really knew anything until the Sorting Hat aired all your inner drama in front of the entire school.

"Well, nobody really knows, we all might end up in Slytherin," Blair joked, earning a horrified look from Neville that suggested he might actually pass out from the thought alone.

"I don’t think I could survive that," Neville confessed, clutching Trevor like the toad could protect him from hypothetical house placements.

"Nah, look at you, seems survivable to me. But it probably won’t fit you. You do know it’s based on personality and traits, not just where your parents went," Blair said with a shrug, and they all nodded.

Now Neville was a little red after Blair finished talking, looking at him with a mix of shyness and maybe even admiration. Fair enough, Blair had rescued Trevor like a toad-whispering legend.

"You’re right. I just hope it’s not Hufflepuff, not that there’s anything wrong with Hufflepuff!" Neville quickly added, panicking at his own words, and Blair nodded sagely like someone who personally knew at least three vengeful Puffs.

"Hell yeah, Hufflepuff is awesome. They only look nice, they throw the wildest parties. My sibling told me, she was a Hufflepuff. I’d love to be one, but I don’t think it’s in my cards," Blair said. Harry was nodding along, fully ready to become a Puff groupie if Blair ended up there.

"They won’t survive you, Blair," Harry said, grinning. Blair flicked his forehead, careful around the scar, of course, and glanced around, realizing he was actually surrounded by a bunch of Gryffindors. It felt like it. Loud, chaotic, a little unhinged... yeah, definitely Gryffindor energy.

"Honestly, I’m just excited to go to Hogwarts, and I don’t care which house I’m in as long as I make lots of friends and get to play between classes. Snacks are important too," Blair said, laying out his priorities.

"What about studying?!" Hermione asked, outraged. Oh right. He was technically going to a school. Minor detail.

"I think I’ll just put effort into fifth and seventh year, OWLs and NEWTs, you can rest in between," Blair said confidently. Hermione looked absolutely horrified, as if he’d just suggested setting the library on fire for fun.

"I just hope I won’t have to meet or be in the same house as You-Know-Who’s son," Neville said nervously, and Blair laughed, biting his lip to keep from blurting out something unhinged and wildly unhelpful like 'oh you already have'.

"Geez, it’s not as if Voldy’s coming to Hogwarts this year. I’m sure you’ll be fine," Blair said, trying to reassure Neville, whose cheeks turned red again as he looked away. Harry, on the other hand, looked like he was mentally launching Neville into the Forbidden Forest.

"We should change into our robes. You can change here with the boys, Neville. Blair, are you coming?" Hermione asked, leaving Blair confused and very concerned about what exactly she thought he was.

"Where?"

"To change, of course. The boys will be changing here," she said to him slowly, as if he were a particularly dense cauldron.

"So I should stay and change here too?" Blair asked, still not getting it. Neville turned the color of a tomato. "But it’s improper! You should change with the girls!" he blurted out, looking on the brink of fainting. Blair made a mental note to catch him if needed, he was an expert in dramatic collapses.

"I’m a boy though?" Blair said, utterly baffled, while Neville’s soul briefly left his body and Hermione’s eyebrows nearly reached the ceiling.

Neville gaped at him, mouth hanging open. "What?!" he squeaked.

"Oh, sorry Blair, you just have really pretty hair, I assumed. See you in a bit," Hermione said, turning to leave. Blair was still on the fence about her, but he figured he liked her. And yes, his hair was pretty. Hell yeah.

"Are you really a boy? Sorry, you’re just so pretty-" Neville stammered, now in full panic. "Sorry, really sorry, oh don’t be angry, I-" Blair stopped him mid-spiral and placed a hand on Neville’s shaky one, looking him dead in the eyes with maximum dramatic tenderness.

“Happens more than you think, it’s cool. And you think I’m pretty, how could I be mad?” Blair said softly, which only made Neville blush deeper. Across from them, Harry looked absolutely furious for some reason. “I think you’re prettier!” he blurted before he could stop himself.

"You lot are weird. I just want to know if we eat before or after they chuck us in a hat," Ron said, already halfway into his robes and clearly prioritizing dinner.

"Valid point, and thank you all, but please, let’s not inflate my ego too much, David is clearly the prettiest here," Blair said, as David nodded smugly in agreement, causing both Harry and Neville to turn an even deeper shade of red. Blair changed into his robes too, now looking like a very respectable, mildly unhinged mini wizard ready to cause headlines.

"Oh, I’m starting to get excited again! The robes look so good on you all," Blair proclaimed, earning a round of giggles. "Wish we could have pink robes though," he added seriously, and David nodded in solemn agreement, clearly in favor of a more fabulous dress code.

The door opened and the boys looked up. "Cousin!" Blair screamed, startling a blushing Draco. "Oh, Blair… umm, I’m glad you made it," he mumbled, definitely still holding a grudge from the whole Madam Malkin’s incident.

Blair had kind of mentally made a pact with himself to offer a peace treaty once he saw Draco again. After all, they were all eleven and suffering from whatever deluxe pure-blood brainwash package their parents had dumped on them.

"Oh yeah, it was a nice ride. Excited?" he asked, and Draco nodded, trying very hard to act cool.

"Everyone, this is my cousin Draco Malfoy and-oh! Crabbe and Goyle, you’re here too! Remember me?" Blair asked sweetly, flashing the kind of smile that said I absolutely traumatized you once and will do it again with if necessary.

Crabbe and Goyle went a little pale, yeah, maybe there’d been one or two minor accidents involving Blair’s fireballs at one of those old pure-blood parties with his bio mom, but come on, their eyebrows did grow back. Eventually.

"Malfoy, are you?" Ron asked with a scowl.

"What, think my name is funny? No need to-" Draco started, chin up and voice dripping with inherited superiority.

"Shhhh, blood feuds are giving David a headache," Blair quickly jumped in, waving his hands to deescalate whatever nonsense was brewing, while David gave an approving hiss from his shoulder.

"Oh, you brought a snake! So cool, fit right in inside Slytherin," Crabbe said, carefully reaching out to pet David. David, Merlin bless his soul, allowed it and even flicked his tongue with extra cuteness, fully leaning into his role as the glittery ambassador.

"Wow, so cool! I heard you can speak to them, is that true?" Draco asked, and Blair nodded.

 "It’s the same snake I told you about when we were kids, if you remember, not a secret anymore, Mom doesn’t mind." Draco nodded and, to Blair’s surprise, didn’t bring up the blood-traitor thing again. Brownie points to him.

"Well, anyway, we heard Harry Potter was on the train and wanted to come say hey," Draco said, looking over the boys until his eyes landed on Harry, and recognition hit him.

"Oh, are you him?"

Harry nodded, and Draco gave a small, awkward wave. "Hey then... guess we’ve technically met," he mumbled, and Harry just nodded again.

All in all, everyone was on their best behavior. "Well, I guess I’ll see you at the Sorting. Best of luck to you all," Draco said, turning to leave. Blair followed after him.

"Hey, Draco, wait a sec, listen, I’m sorry about Madam Malkin’s shop. I’m not not wanting to be your friend, okay?" Blair said sweetly, watching as Draco turned around, slightly red and clearly caught off guard by this ceasefire ambush.

"Yeah, I’m sorry too, it wasn’t polite," Draco said, surprisingly sincere, and Blair blinked, mildly impressed that pure-blood pride hadn’t physically stopped the apology from leaving his mouth.

"Okay, so save me a seat if I’m sorted into Slytherin?" Blair asked. "Of course!" It was Crabbe who answered immediately, sounding way too excited for someone who once lost his eyebrows to Blair’s spellwork.

"Well, technically you should save us a seat since you're in B alphabetically," Draco pointed out. "But yeah, we should sit together!" he added, as if they hadn’t nearly duelled over robe fittings. "Deal," Blair grinned, sealing the truce.

He went back to his other friends and found Ron staring at him. "Your mum was a Black before, right? You’re actually his cousin?" Ron asked, squinting.

"Well, yep," Blair answered, popping the p with zero shame.

"So wait, that means you’re related to You-Know-Who’s son!" Neville said, looking horrified. Blair burst out laughing, fully enjoying the irony of the situation on at least three different levels.

"I’m sorry to disappoint, but all of us are kinda related," Blair said through laughter he couldn’t control, and the rest of them joined in.

And then finally, finally, the train stopped and they all spilled out, excitement buzzing in the air. Hagrid’s voice boomed as he waved them over. "First years over here!" he called, grinning wide and waving directly at Blair and Harry.

They all sat together in a boat, and Blair was amazed, it was so beautiful. He had never been in a boat before, and now, with the sun already set and stars scattered across the sky, it felt like the whole world was holding its breath just for them.

"Wow! There are no stars like that in the city," Blair said, eyes wide with wonder. Harry, sitting beside him, nodded quietly. He was looking at Blair and not at the sky, and then Blair suddenly felt Harry’s hand rest gently on his own.

"Oh, are you getting seasick?" Blair asked, squeezing Harry’s hand with a teasing grin.

"Umm, no- I mean yes! Feeling a little sick," Harry said, clearly flustered. Oh, poor thing. "Lean on me then," Blair offered, holding out his shoulder and hand, which Harry gratefully took. David settled between them.

They reached the shore, climbed the stairs, and were promptly greeted by a very stern-looking witch Blair could only assume was Professor McGonagall, based on the aura of authority, tartan, and the overwhelming urge he suddenly had to fix his posture.

Harry stayed close, still leaning on him, clearly deciding that water and he didn’t mix. "There are four houses…" McGonagall began, launching into a full exposition monologue while eyeing the students sharply as she explained the house points system.

Yep, Blair was probably putting some poor house in the negative in the near future.

Then her stare passed over Harry and Blair, and she stopped for a second, then did a double take, then a triple take. Without a word, she cast a quick Tempus. Yep. The year was still 1991. Not a time-travel prank. Just two boys looking suspiciously like James Potter and a miniature Sirius Black.

"Oh, may Merlin help us all," she muttered under her breath, before straightening up and instructing them to wait quietly for the Sorting.

"What was that about?" asked Harry.

"Oh, I’m pretty sure your dad and my brother used to pull off insane pranks, and we look way too much like them. She almost fainted," Blair said with a small laugh, proud of the mischief  by association.

"Oh, I didn’t know you have a brother who knew my father," Harry said. Blair winced a little, the smile faltering just for a second.

"I have two, actually. One’s dead and one’s in Azkaban. I don’t really like to talk about it," Blair explained, voice quieter now. Harry just nodded, not pushing, his hand still resting lightly in Blair’s.

"Oh, you think the Hat will send me home? What if I don’t have enough magic to even get into a house?" poor Neville whispered, starting to spiral right next to Blair, who immediately considered wrapping him in a blanket and assigning him a therapist.

"Oh, Neville, don’t worry. You’re plenty magical. I’m sure you’ll get in, any house would be lucky to have you," Blair said, stepping away from Harry just enough to give Neville a gentle pat.

"Thank you, Blair. I hope you’re right," Neville mumbled, red as a tomato but visibly comforted.

"Oh, he's playing dirty," Blair heard Harry mutter. Huh?

They didn’t really have much time after that.

They got a little jump scare from a swarm of ghosts and Peeves, who was, without question, a menace to society. Then came the collective gasp at the enchanted ceiling, and finally the Sorting Hat itself, delivering a full-on theater performance like it was auditioning for West End.

The next second, Professor McGonagall was calling them name by name. Oh no. Blair was really starting to feel the nerves now.

Abbott Hannah was first, the Hat barely touched her head before shouting Hufflepuff. And god dammit, Blair suddenly remembered he was a Black, which meant- "Black, Blair," Professor McGonagall called, doing a very visible double take at the name before glancing at him again.

Everyone was looking at him. Thank god his hair looked good today, shoutout to Dad for that. The entire hall had gone quiet. Their little group let out a collective gasp, Neville staring with big round eyes, and Ron gaping so hard he looked ready to catch flies for dinner.

"Well, you never gave me a chance to say my last name," Blair said with a grin, aiming it right at Ron, who immediately snapped his mouth shut.

Next to him, Harry gave a little nudge, always the supportive friend, and yeah, okay, Blair was going. Showtime.

Blair stepped forward, all eyes on him, and felt his cheeks heat up. He knew this could happen, but knowing and experiencing were two completely different things. Dumbledore was watching too, curious but cautious. Oh no, was he remembering the arson incident from when Blair was eleven months old?

He reached the stool and sat down, heart pounding, as Professor McGonagall gently placed the Sorting Hat on his head. Almost immediately, a little voice began nudging at his thoughts with the enthusiasm of a nosy great-uncle rifling through your diary.

'Huh, interesting... a Seer, I see,' the Hat mused. A Seer?! That’s what you call living a life, getting hyperfixated on a book, and then being reborn straight into said book? Neat.

'Interesting mind you have... always sharp with a reply. Cunning indeed. Lots and lots of ambition too, to change it all,' the Hat continued, sounding far too amused for something that lived solely to judge children for the rest of its immortal hat life.

'Oh, umm, hey Hat,' Blair thought nervously, 'I know you take wants into consideration, so, you know... I burned some Slytherin eyebrows, so maybe not Slytherin. Like, anything but.' No shade to Slytherin, he just really, really wanted to be with Harry. Priorities.

'Ahh, interesting. Ravenclaw is not for you, boy. And Hufflepuff, well, they wouldn’t survive you.' Yeah, that tracked. 'And Gryffindor… you are brave. Really brave, since a young age. Always living for others, putting yourself last, dying for others if needed… reckless and brave. Yes, I can see that too.'

'Great. Awesome. So… Gryffindor?' Blair asked hopefully.

'Oh, but you are cunning, little one. Brewing potions behind everyone’s back. Looking out for others, yes, but a little selfish, you are,' the Hat mused. Wow, 'rude!' Blair really hoped there was some kind of student-hat confidentiality clause. The last thing he needed was this snitch hat reporting him to the Aurors.

'Okay, you listen here, you overglorified piece of sentient clothing,' Blair snapped internally, 'could you please just sort me into Gryffindor? Continue being a bitch and next year they’ll be sorting students with a Buzzfeed quiz!' He was properly angry now.

The Hat just laughed at him. Laughed! Oh, the bastard. Blair sat there fuming, mentally adding 'haunted fashion' to his personal enemies list.

'Oh no, you are definitely going to-' "SLYTHERIN!" the Hat bellowed before Blair could finish mentally threatening it with scissors, sealing his fate with zero mercy.

Fuck his life. Fueled by pure rage at that rude, fabric-based menace, Blair stood to a completely silent room. Without a word, he gave an angry little wave, and turned the Sorting Hat bright pink. Served it right.

"Mister Black! What is the meaning of this?!" Professor McGonagall asked scandalized at the now pink hat.

"He was being rude! If he’s going to be rude, he should at least be pretty on the outside. Don’t worry, it’ll only last a year, just enough time for him to learn some manners!" Blair shot back.

She looked shocked, staring at the bright pink Sorting Hat in her hands. Dumbledore’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, while Snape looked like they’d just sorted a basilisk into Slytherin instead of a student.

Everyone was staring, and the Slytherin table wasn’t sure whether to clap or not. The only thing you could hear over the line of students was Harry laughing his ass off. Traitor.  

Chapter Text

Blair dragged his feet to the Slytherin table, scowling. He knew first impressions mattered, even if he'd just been sorted. So he forced a small wave toward the other students. No one waved back. One girl flinched like he’d brandished a wand.

Maybe the first impression was already made when he turned the Sorting Hat pink. Oops. Should he try sending an owl before Hogwarts sent one to his mom? Or was he already cooked?

An older prefect awkwardly pointed Blair to an empty seat, clearly unsure what to do with the first Slytherin of the year. Blair plopped down with the energy of someone attending his own funeral.

“Thanks!” Blair said with a smile, only for the poor prefect to recoil like he’d offered him a cursed cupcake. Ugh. This was going to be a thing, wasn’t it? He’d fix it somehow. You knew you were the problem when even the Slytherins looked scared.

The hall stayed frozen, all eyes locked on the pink Sorting Hat. “Well, carry on. I’ve been sorted and sat. Not planning to turn anything else pink,” Blair announced after a few more seconds of silence. The moment he spoke, the entire hall blinked out of their trance like someone had hit the unpause button.

The Sorting carried on, students sent off to the houses Blair vaguely remembered. Soon enough, Draco joined him, followed by Goyle and a grinning Crabbe, who’d apparently fallen for David and asked if he could pet him again.

David flicked his tongue, gave an approving hiss, and slithered down Blair’s arm straight into Crabbe’s waiting hands, curling up like he owned the place. Crabbe beamed. Goyle leaned in, curious. Draco leaned back in his seat, smug and glowing.

“I knew you’d get in! I’m so happy we’re in the same house! Do you think they’ll let us be roommates? It's only natural. And that Transfiguration on the Hat, brilliant! Was he really that rude?” Draco fired off in one breath, eyes wide with excitement. Goyle and Crabbe leaned in like gossip-starved pigeons.

“Well, thank you, Draco. You seem to be the only one willing to room with me,” Blair said with a crooked smile, his laugh thin and wobbly as he glanced at a dark-skinned boy who was inching toward the nearest exit.

“That’s not true! I’d be glad to room with you too!” Crabbe blurted out, clutching David.

“Hey, what about me?” Goyle asked, voice wounded.

“I’d be happy to room with each and every one of you, don’t worry. We’ll see the lists soon,” Blair said, spreading his arms like a generous host.

“As for the Hat, he called me selfish! Can you believe that?” he added, voice rising with theatrical outrage, as if he'd just been accused of drowning kittens.

The three Slytherins beside him stared blankly. Draco blinked, dead serious. “That’s a basic Slytherin trait,” he said, not a trace of humor in sight.

“Well, I was still offended! He could’ve said it nicer. Now he’s going to be pink,” Blair huffed, crossing his arms.

“Bloody brilliant, you are,” Crabbe said, and Blair felt a smile tug at his lips. Maybe he wasn’t completely doomed here after all.

His little group from the train landed in Gryffindor, no surprises, no plot twists. But when Harry stepped forward, Blair found himself quietly wishing he'd end up in Slytherin. Just for the drama.

“Potter, Harry,” Professor McGonagall called, her voice sharp.

Harry sat on the stool, scanning the crowd until his eyes locked with Blair’s. Blair grinned and shot him a quick thumbs-up, subtle as a firework in a library.

The moment the Hat landed on Harry’s head, his face twisted like the Hat had just insulted his entire bloodline. He sat there stiffly, eyebrows sinking lower with every passing second, clearly locked in a silent argument with the overglorified fabric. At last, the Hat gave a fed-up yell- “GRYFFINDOR!” as if he’d finally had enough.

Harry stood up, clutching the Hat with both hands aggressively, as if he were trying to strangle it. He shoved it back to Professor McGonagall, who looked thoroughly baffled.

Blair dropped his head onto the hard table with a loud thud and let out a groan. “Noooo, they separated me from my babyyyyy,” he wailed, earning another round of wide-eyed stares from the entire Slytherin table.

Blair lifted his head and caught Harry shooting him an apologetic look across the hall. He sighed. What could you do?

“Don’t be sad, Blair. You still got us,” Crabbe said, giving his shoulder a pat that was more thump than comfort. Draco nodded solemnly.

“Yeah, I know. Thank you, guys. And we still have classes together, right?” Blair said, voice chipper but stretched thin, like he was trying to comfort himself more than anyone else.

The three boys nodded, but Draco opened his mouth with, “Well, yes, but we don’t really get along with-” Blair cut him off with a sharp look and a raised hand, the universal sign for shush before I hex you.

“Well, we’re going to learn how to get along, because I refuse to exist without Harry. We have a shared child, for Merlin’s sake! I’ll demand at least parental visits. Try separating us more, and there won’t be a school to come back to next year,” Blair finished his rambling, only half joking as his eyes glinted with chaotic promise.

The entire table froze, then inhaled in a single, horrified gasp. Every Slytherin eye locked on Blair like he’d just threatened to unleash a basilisk. “Umm, I was mostly kidding, guys,” Blair said, smiling weakly at a crowd of very unconvinced faces.

The dark-skinned first year beside Draco let out a tiny squeal, shoulders inching toward his ears. “Mostly?” he whispered.

Once everyone was sorted, Dumbledore swept up to the front to begin the feast- but not before delivering a very intellectual, possibly profound speech that wrapped up with, “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”.

“Is that like a morse code? Should we write it down or something?” Blair leaned in and whispered to Crabbe, who was already ready to pile food on his plate and clearly not interested in decoding ancient headmaster riddles.

“It’s short, is what it is, we can eat now!” Crabbe said, the only thing on his mind clearly food. And right on cue, the feast appeared, steaming and endless. Blair lit up.

“OHHHH food, finally!” Blair cried, diving in as if he hadn’t demolished half a trolley of sweets just hours ago.

They ate while chatter buzzed around them. Crabbe was busy letting David coil around his wrist like a fashion statement, and the dark-skinned kid, well, he kept staring at Blair. Actually, every time Blair looked up, someone was watching him.

He should start a mukbang YouTube channel, wasn’t fair the Slytherins got this premium content for free. Blair was putting on a show, and none of them were even subscribing.

After they ate, Dumbledore made a very important announcement. No going into the Forbidden Forest, reasonable enough. But then came, “Do not go near the third floor unless you wish to die a most agonizing death.” Blair perked up instantly, eyes shining. Now that sounded interesting.

“Oh, we have to go to the third floor!” Blair shouted at Draco, eyes wide with delight, already plotting. Draco nearly dropped his cup.

The prefects looked horrified, forks frozen mid-bite. “Please don’t,” whispered the one who had helped Blair earlier, eyes pleading.

Draco looked like he'd just been told he had to share a dorm with a banshee. “No way,” he said, crossing his arms like that alone could stop Blair.

Well, fine then. Blair would go alone. He’d do it out of sheer, unshakable spite-

Oh. Ohhhhh. Blair’s mind whirred to life, eyes narrowing as pieces clicked into place, Scabbers, his brother, the Philosopher’s Stone, and Dumbledore’s hilariously bad sense of security.

A plan was forming, wild and unhinged, just the way he liked it.

Dumbledore had basically built an escape room with extra steps, riddles, puzzles, the occasional death trap. It was almost like he wanted a certain someone to try and steal the Stone. Suspicious. Very suspicious.

And that was the moment Blair came up with the blackmail Dumbledore into releasing his brother plan. All he had to do was get the Stone, aka the blackmail material.

Dumbledore had enough pull with the Wizengamot, and if Blair could get proof… oh yes, it was all coming together, one step at a time.

Operation Lemon Drop Leverage would begin the moment Blair figured out where the third floor was. Minor detail. Easily solved. Probably.

They were led by the prefects down to the dungeons, and Blair could already feel his inner mini-villain energy surging. It was ridiculous, gather all the 'evil kids' and toss them in a dungeon, surrounded by snake decor and dimmed lighting. Still… he had to admit, it was a vibe.

They were met at the entrance by none other than Severus Snape. Blair was pretty sure that was the guy. He looked nothing like Blair had imagined, less evil overlord, more sleep-deprived bat with opinions.

First of all, he was young, early thirties, younger-than-his-dad young. Sure, he had a big nose, pale skin, and shoulder-length black hair, but it all worked somehow. Blair didn’t think he was nearly as ugly as the books claimed. In fact, he looked... sort of good, actually.

“And what are you staring at, Mr. Black?” Professor Snape asked in his perfectly flat voice. Blair let out an excited squawk, practically vibrating. Oh, that was so cool.

“Oh, ummm… you have a nice face?” Blair blurted before his brain caught up. The room went dead silent. Everyone around him looked like they’d just started mentally drafting Blair’s obituary.

Professor Snape blinked once, very slowly, clearly weighing whether to deduct points, assign detention, or dissolve into mist and pretend this never happened.

“Flattery,” Snape said dryly, “will not improve your grades, Mr. Black. Nor will poor impulse control.” And that was it. No points lost. No detention. Blair was off the hook, for now.

Then came the explanation of the house rules, how they were not, under any circumstances, to behave like the common baboons in the other houses.

Anyone foolish enough to lose points or disappoint Slytherin would find themselves in a very personal beef with Professor Snape. Blair made a mental note: do not test that. For the first week.

“So, if anyone plans to embarrass this house, do let me know,” Professor Snape finished. Blair, aiming for honesty, raised his hand. Professor Snape turned to him with the dead-eyed stare of a man who regretted every career choice.

“Oh… that was rhetorical, wasn’t it?” Blair mumbled, lowering his hand like it weighed ten pounds, the picture of a one-person walk of shame.

“Yes,” was all Professor Snape said, with the exhausted tone of a man who'd seen his future and it involved migraines.

Draco was muttering protective prayers under his breath beside Blair, eyes flicking between him and Professor Snape. Blair gave a smug little smile. Thank you, cousin.

“Those are your assigned rooms. Two per room. No switching. Don’t even think about asking,” Professor Snape said, pinning the list to the wall.

Blair poked at the parchment, lips pursed. “Who the hell is Blaise Zabini?” he asked, voice cutting through the chatter. One hand lifted slowly, hesitant, trembling.

“Oh, okay. Hey, I’m Blair,” he said, beaming.

“Please, Professor, I’ll sleep in the common room! I don’t want to die!” Zabini wailed, skidding to a stop beside Professor Snape.

“Final placement,” Professor Snape replied flatly, utterly unfazed by the fact someone had just accused Blair of future premeditated murder.

After receiving the password, everyone scattered to their rooms. Blair grabbed the trembling hand of one Blaise Zabini and marched them inside, immediately claiming the right bed like a warlord declaring territory.

“You won’t mind, right? David needs his sun, gotta keep the tan up, well as much as you can get in the dungeon” Blair mumbled, already pulling out an armful of belongings. With a few quick flicks, he unshrunk everything and began organizing like he lived there. Because he did now.

“Y-y-you just unshrank them without a wand?” Blaise stammered, voice shaking like his legs might be next.

“Yep! Get used to it,” Blair said with a laugh, tossing a pair of glittery socks onto his bed.

“You’re not unpacking? Too tired? You should get some rest, I could help you tomorrow,” Blair said brightly, already fluffing his pillow. Blaise didn’t move. Just stood there, wide-eyed.

Blair grabbed another small bag, already bracing for a long night. “Okay, so listen, I’ve got stuff to do, so just pretend I’m here. And don’t tell anyone! Snitches get stitches,” he added with a grin, then slipped on his concealment charm.

“W-what?! He just disappeared?!” Blaise yelped to the empty room. Except it wasn’t empty, Blair was still there, grinning like a gremlin. Hell yeah, concealment charms. He swore his were better than that dusty old Invisibility Cloak everyone raved about.

Blair slipped out of the dungeons, silent and smug, on a mission. The Room of Requirement was about to become a drug lab. Potion lab. He meant potion lab. Obviously. Very academic. Very legal.

It took him two hours of navigating this forsaken castle someone had the nerve to call a school before he finally reached the seventh floor. With a muttered, home-brewed Revelio, he spotted the right stretch of wall and began the all-important summoning pace, back and forth, focused, dramatic, and just a little theatrical.

The room finally creaked open, revealing a gorgeous, fully stocked potions lab. “Yay!” Blair squealed, clutching his tiny bag. His feet throbbed, but it was worth it. Victory had never looked so well-organized.

He laid out the contents of the small bag, careful and excited. A neat collection of ingredients for the Wolfsbane Potion, plus a stash of baskets packed with food for his brother. With a few practiced flicks, Blair unshrunk everything, the table filling up fast.

No way was he giving up his smuggling and potion-dealing business, not when he had a secret lab with mood lighting. He set it all up like a pro, ingredients sorted, cauldrons bubbling and on automatic stir. Gossip Girl 1, Hogwarts 0.

With a lot of help from Nymphy and some late-night scheming, Blair had done extensive research on Hogwarts’ wards. After weeks of trial, error, and monologues, he’d crafted a rune he was pretty sure would let him Apparate into and out of the castle without crossing the boundary. He’d give it a try soon. Hopefully with all his limbs.

It was well past two a.m. by the time Blair finally crawled into bed. What a day. Pure chaos, ten out of ten. He passed out instantly, only to snap awake at six a.m., blinking at the ceiling like it had personally betrayed him. Ughhh. When was the weekend coming?

Blair was a person on a mission though. First of all, hair and skincare routine. Duh. Just because he was in a dungeon didn't mean he had to look like he lived in one.

He got dressed, made himself presentable, flawless, really, before stumbling into the common room, seeing it properly in daylight for the first time.

It was beautiful. Definitely had super-villain lair energy, and it gave off Grimmauld Place vibes, but with giant windows peeking out into the lake. You could see under the water. So cool.

It was amazing, gothic arches, dark stone, and snakes everywhere. David gave an approving hiss and slithered down Blair’s arm, flicking his tongue thoughtfully as he examined the room from every angle.

“Sssso beautiful! And Snaccarina said I’d never get anywhere in life,” David complained, his tone wounded and theatrical. Blair puffed up proudly, arms crossed.

“Well, look at you now, David,” Blair hissed back, grinning. A few early risers nearby turned to stare, eyes wide at the sight of a boy whispering sweet nothings to a snake before breakfast.

A few girls from his year stood nearby, he didn’t know their names, but he recognized them from yesterday. They were watching him and David like they’d accidentally walked into a cursed play and couldn’t look away.

“Good morning to you all, my fellow firsties! Any of you know how to braid hair and could help me out for the day?” Blair asked, voice light and laced with charm, flashing a hopeful smile that screamed I come in peace.

A small girl with brown hair shyly raised her hand. Blair lit up. “Cool! Got a minute to help me?” he asked, already pulling a comb from seemingly nowhere as if this was a salon and she’d just been hired.

She nodded and took the brush from him with trembling hands. “I’m Blair, thanks for the help! What’s your name? Also, sorry if I forget it, I’ve only got 250GB of memory and most of it’s wasted on cartoons,” Blair said with a bright smile as she began brushing his hair, slow and careful.

“T-Tracey Davis,” she whispered, barely audible over the soft strokes of the brush. Blair beamed."

“Nice to meet you!” Blair chirped, completely missing the nervous energy radiating off Tracey. He pulled out some parchment and a glittery quill, settling in to write letters while she braided his hair with extra care and the kind of caution usually reserved for defusing magical bombs. Blair wasn’t about to complain.

First, he drafted an ad. After classes today, he wanted to gather all the Slytherins in his year for a little get-to-know-you game. He already had a concept, a plan, and, most importantly, a ball. A charming little house introduction, Blair-style.

He flagged down the same terrified prefect from yesterday and asked if the game idea was okay. The poor guy nodded quickly, eyes wide. “Sounds like a good idea… if it’s just a ball game, no need for supervision.” Blair beamed. Hell yeah.

Blair finished the ad with and levitated it near the first-year rooms, sealing it in place with a Sticking Charm. The parchment sparkled slightly, just because. The entire common room paused to stare, eyes wide, watching the announcement float there.

As Tracey kept working, another pair of girls came down the stairs. One had short black hair and a sharp gaze, the other had soft, yellow-blond waves and the haunted look of someone watching a wild animal being calmly groomed. The blond stared at Tracey with worry.

“I can’t believe you let a filthy half-blood touch your hair,” the short-haired girl spat, voice dripping with venom. Blair’s smile froze mid-sparkle. Tracey flinched, hands pausing mid-braid, her face going pale as parchment.

“Well, you know, it’s her hands that braid the hair, not her blood, so… um, it’s good?” Blair said, tilting his head with mock innocence.

“Why? Can you do it better?” he added sweetly. The girl flushed red, clearly not expecting a that comeback.

“N-not really… my elf usually did it,” she mumbled, cheeks glowing like a Weasley in July. Blair raised an eyebrow, smug.

“Sss, talk about rude,” David hissed, giving an offended little wiggle from Blair’s hands. The blond girl gasped. The short-haired one took a step back. Blair just smiled sweetly.

“Yeah, but we’ll try to be nice. First house unity, then school unity, and by seventeen I’m pretty sure we could take down the Ministry,” Blair hissed to a very pleased David, who gave an enthusiastic flick of his tongue and looked like he was already drafting legislation.

“W-what are you talking about with him?” Tracey asked, curiosity outweighing caution as she eyed David. Blair beamed.

“Oh, we were talking about the introduction game we’re doing after classes, the ad’s on the board, check it out and come to the lake by four!” Blair said brightly.

“Oh, and we also discussed how to take down the Ministry. Ongoing conversation, really,” he added with a wink. David gave an approving hiss.

No one laughed. Tracey blinked. The blond girl looked ready to report him to the nearest Auror.

“W-we’ll be there,” Tracey whispered in that same resigned tone, the voice of someone who’d accepted their fate.

“Awesome! Wow, the braid is so cool, what do you call it? You did such a good job!” Blair beamed at Tracey, practically glowing, while she turned pink and stared at her hands.

“Oh, t-thanks. It’s called a dragon braid. I’m glad you like it,” Tracey mumbled as a blush crept up her cheeks. Blair tilted his head. Oh no. Was Harry actually contagious?

The yellow-haired girl rushed over the moment Tracey finished with Blair. “Are you okay?” she asked, gently placing a hand over Tracey’s. Blair blinked. Oh Merlin, maybe Tracey wasn’t feeling well. Zabini had looked a bit pale yesterday too. Must be first-day jitters, either that or Hogwarts had a very emotionally supportive flu going around.

“Oh, feel better!” Blair called after her, already halfway out the common room and on his way to the Owlery, clutching his letter. He had to get it sent before Hogwarts beat him to it. Damage control first, trauma later.

Behind him, Blair heard the girls gasp as they spotted the ad. “L-look at the signature… d-do you think it’s really going to be a game or is he going to-” The rest faded as Blair rounded the corner, grinning.

He didn’t quite catch what they were whispering about, but he’d planned a fun game! A wholesome, friendly, slightly chaotic time. They’d see, it would be a blast. Not literally. And let them wonder. Mystery was half the fun.

He reached the Owlery soon enough, one of the few perks of getting lost in the castle at two a.m. He pulled out his letter, smoothing the slightly wrinkled parchment.

Dear and most beloved parents,

Have I mentioned how much I love you?
No better parents in the whole wide world.
10/10 would ask to be adopted by you again if needed.
So… well. Unfortunately, wait, no, let’s be positive!
I got sorted into Slytherin! Just like you, Mom!
Are we surprised? Not really.
The writing was on the wall, if you ask me.
I hope you’re not upset, I was aiming for Hufflepuff, but the Hat!
The Hat was rude you know?
I accidentally turned him pink.
In front of the whole school.
Okay… not so accidental.
I just asked for Gryffindor as Hufflepuff was way out the race at that point.
And that patch of fabric called me selfish and sent me on my merry way to Slytherin.
I do feel better now, the green and silver robes look fantastic on my complexion.
Anyway, don’t be mad. The Hat is just pink. He’ll survive.

P.S- I love you!
P.S.S- Please don’t send a Howler.

Yours in apologetic remorse,
Blair O. Black, Head of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Glitter

Okay, yeah, solid P.R. damage control. The letter struck the perfect balance of charm and panic. He hadn’t technically gotten in trouble for the Hat incident yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t coming. Ugh. Bureaucracy had delays, not mercy.

He picked one of the school owls, plenty of them were free and looking profoundly bored. The owl gave a little hoot of approval as he tied the letter to its leg. Blair dusted his hands off with a proud nod. Look at me, being productive before breakfast. Iconic.

He’d already set up after-school activities, got his hair done, and sent a letter to his parents, all before seven. Not to mention the little detour last night to launch Gossip Girl’s underground potion empire. And he’d done it all on four hours of sleep. Legend behavior.

Well, it was a good time as any to head to breakfast, so Blair let his feet carry him down, he already knew the way after yesterday’s grand tour. Hopefully, he’d spot Harry. They definitely needed to catch up. Preferably without anyone screaming or gasping this time.

When Blair made it to the Great Hall, he spotted Harry sitting alone at the Gryffindor table. They were some of the first students there, it was still early. Harry looked pissed. Uh-oh. Hopefully he wasn’t mad about Blair being sorted into the 'evil' house. Though, to be fair… it was extremely on brand for Blair.

“Harry! Good morning, green eyes! How was your first night at Hogwarts?” Blair called out, voice dripping with the usual flair and zero awareness that Harry’s expression could curdle milk.

Harry’s eyes lit up the moment he looked up, a huge smile spreading across his face. “Blair! Finally, I was hoping you’d come to breakfast early,” he said brightly, practically glowing. He shifted like he wanted to pat the bench beside him, then seemed to remember Blair was a Slytherin and froze, hand awkwardly hovering mid-air.

“What’s for breakfast? I’m starving,” Blair announced, sliding in right next to Harry without a single care for seating arrangements or centuries of inter-house tension.

“The Slytherins can have me for lunch, breakfast is for you,” Blair said, nudging Harry with a grin. David slithered off Blair’s shoulder and onto Harry’s lap, flicking his tongue affectionately, clearly having missed his other emotional support human.

“Oh y-yeah, that would be awesome! You won’t mind?” Harry stammered, lighting up like someone just handed him a puppy. “Here, I made you the tea you like, oh, and a plain omelet,” he added, quickly pushing the plate and cup toward Blair.

“Ohhh, thank you! You shouldn’t have, you know me so well,” Blair giggled, then leaned in and kissed Harry’s cheek, all casual, like he always did when his mom made him breakfast. Harry went stiff as a broomstick, face turning Gryffindor red in under three seconds.

Blair just rolled his eyes. Maybe he had some Mini-Dark-Lord effect on people. That was… mildly concerning. Harry definitely wasn’t the first person to turn bright red around him.

“You’re not angry at me for being sorted into Slytherin, right? I tried asking for Gryffindor, you saw the rest. That Hat has personal beef with me,” Blair huffed, stabbing his omelet and stuffing a bite in his mouth.

“Beef? And of course not! I wanted to go to Slytherin too but-”

At that exact moment, Professor Snape swept into the Great Hall, just in time to hear Harry Potter declaring his Slytherin aspirations to Blair Black, who was seated at the Gryffindor table, sipping tea casually. Snape stopped mid-step, eyes narrowing so hard it was a miracle his face didn’t fold in half.

He looked at them. They looked at him. The moment stretched. Then Snape narrowed his eyes one last time, straightened his robes, and dragged his feet toward the staff table without a word. Smart move. Very smart.

“That’s Professor Snape, our head of house. I think he’s already fed up with me,” Blair mumbled before dropping his head onto the table with a thud.

“He looks…” Harry started, trailing off, clearly wrestling with his vocabulary to describe the Professor.

“Like vampires are afraid of him, right?! But it’s also, like, hot? And I accidentally told him that. You know I have no filter, ughhh!” Blair groaned, face still mashed into the table, muffled by pure secondhand embarrassment.

“That’s what you think is hot?!” Harry shouted, voice echoing just enough to turn heads. Blair was positive Professor Snape heard, and cringed so hard he might’ve aged a year on the spot.

“Shhhh, are you crazy? He’s right there!” Blair hissed, eyes wide as he glanced toward the staff table.

“And yeah… kind of? In a gothic aesthetic sort of way. I don’t know! I just thought he looked unique, is all. I was planning to keep it to myself but then I gay panicked, I think.” He took a sip of tea like that explained everything.

“Anyway, how was your evening?” he finally asked, needing to get to the important stuff.  

“G-gay? Are you…?” Harry stammered, face turning red.

Blair burst out laughing. “I’m eleven, Harry. I have no idea. I just… like, um, well, yesterday might have been a sign. I’ll let you know in three to five business years.”

He waved it off with a grin. “Let’s call it bi-panic, for neutrality’s sake. Anyway, forget the boring stuff, how was your evening?”

Harry seemed way more invested in figuring out how on earth Blair found Professor Snape even remotely attractive than talking about his own night, but eventually, after several sighs and one heartfelt “I just don’t see it,” he gave in and started telling Blair about his evening.

“So yeah, the Hat was really curt. I asked to be in Slytherin to be with you, and he was like, ‘Oh, you’ll do great in Slytherin, but is it going to make Blair happy? Then no. Gryffindor for you.’ Can you believe it?” Harry said between bites, gesturing with his fork.

Blair nodded along, deadly serious. “Oh, maybe he likes the pink, because he’s staying that color until we graduate. I promise you that.” He finished his omelet and was now sipping his tea.

“So anyway, the rest was nice. Everyone we came with ended up in Gryffindor, and the twins were there too. Food was great, of course. But ahh…” Harry trailed off, poking at his toast.

“I was the main topic of conversation?” Blair asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking into his teacup.

Harry blushed, eyes darting to his plate. “Yeah… I told them we really do know each other, and how cool you are. They even saw how nice you were on the train! But they all kept freaking out about the whole Black thing. Neville nearly fainted when he realized he’d had a full-on conversation with you for a few hours.”

Blair looked thoroughly amused. “And what’s the verdict? Am I a charming rebel or a walking omen?”

“That you’re probably a git with a secret agenda, and it’s no surprise you got sorted into Slytherin,” Harry muttered, fists clenched.

“Guess I’ll need to work hard to prove them wrong, right?” Blair said with a smirk, eyes glinting with mischief.

"Just be yourself."

“Harry, that’s the worst advice you could give. Have you met me? They’ll be running for the hills,” Blair groaned.

“Yeah! I’ve known you for a few good years, and all you need is to be yourself,” Harry said with the kind of Gryffindor determination that could launch a rebellion.

“Okay, I’ll do my best then,” Blair said with a sigh, placing a hand on his chest like he was accepting a quest. David nodded solemnly from his Harry's hands, the tiniest, sassiest show of support Hogwarts had ever seen.

“Blair! What are you doing sitting here? We saved you a seat at the Slytherin table, you can sit next to me,” the girl with the short black hair appeared out of nowhere, grabbing his arm as if she was trying to drag him back by force of will and social obligation.

“O-or next to me, if you want,” Tracey added quietly from behind her, wringing her hands and looking anywhere but at Blair.

“Oh, thanks for the offer, but I had to catch up with Harry,” Blair said cheerfully, gently prying his arm free. “I’ll sit with you at lunch, okay? Promise. Also, don’t forget, we’ve got the first-year house introduction this evening!” He gave them a dazzling smile, already redirecting the situation like a pro.

Tracey gave a small nod before turning to follow the others, sneaking one last glance over her shoulder. The girl with the black hair huffed and spun on her heel, clearly not waiting for anyone. Blair watched them go, sipping his tea as he juggled teenage politics before sunrise.

“Who are they?” Harry asked, glaring after the retreating girls.

“Girls from my year,” Blair said, turning in his chair. “The one with the brown hair is Tracey, I haven’t learned the other one’s name yet. Tracey did my hair this morning. Pretty cool, right?” He angled his head to show off the braid.

“I-I can learn how to braid too, you know… so you won’t have to ask them,” Harry mumbled, poking at his fork. Blair blinked, then grinned. Oh, that was adorable.

“Ohhh, that would be cool, but you don’t have to. Tracey and I share a dorm, so it makes sense,” Blair said with a soft smile. “But I really appreciate the offer.”

Now done eating, he leaned over and rested his head on Harry’s shoulder without a second thought, eyes fluttering half-shut. He did have a long night, after all. Harry went still as a statue, ears glowing pink, but didn’t move an inch.

Blair felt a presence looming overhead and cracked one eye open. Standing above them was none other than Dumbledore himself, gazing down at the sight before him: a freshly minted Slytherin with his head on the Chosen One’s shoulder, their unofficial child, a glitter-loving snake named David, curled peacefully between them. The look in Dumbledore’s eyes said this was not on the agenda. For a second, Blair swore the man was about to start twitching.

“Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, good morning to you two,” Dumbledore said, his tone mild but his eyes doing the math.

“I didn’t know you were acquainted. I do hope this isn’t some sort of inter-house conflict already.” Blair blinked up at him, expression blank and unimpressed, then gave him the full Gen Z stare, a perfect mix of why are you speaking and I’m too tired for this wizard boomer energy.

“I’m resting my head on Harry’s shoulder, how is that evil?” Blair asked, one eyebrow arching as his head settled even deeper into Harry’s.

Harry, after a moment of panicked thought, wrapped a trembling arm around Blair. Huh! Take that, Dumbledore, we’re friends. Blair smugly tightened Harry’s arm around himself, and Harry, surprisingly, relaxed and held him properly. Victory.

“Oh, we’ve known each other for years. We live close and play in the same park,” Harry said, his voice edged with irritation, glaring up at Dumbledore.

“Oh, yes, of course. Mr. Black, may I have a word?” Dumbledore asked, voice gentle but wary, his hands disappearing into his beard in what looked suspiciously like a self-soothing gesture.

“Oh, no thank you,” Blair answered sweetly, biting into Harry’s toast, straight from Harry’s hand. Dumbledore visibly flinched.

"Pardon?"

“Do you want to hear it in Russian? Neit,” Blair said, putting on his best over-the-top accent and flashing a sugary smile.

“I didn’t know you could speak Russian,” Harry mumbled beside him, casually continuing to nibble on their toast, yes, it was definitely a shared asset now.

“Oh, I don’t. I just learned how to say no in as many languages as I can,” Harry snorted, nearly choking on the toast.

“Sorry, Monarch of Hogwarts,” Blair said sweetly, batting his lashes with theatrical innocence, “if you want to have a word with me, pull me out of History of Magic for it. I tend to be way more cooperative when it means skipping class.”

Dumbledore paused, then smiled, that tiny, knowing twinkle lighting in his eye and aiming straight at Blair like a targeting charm. Wow. Success. He’d cracked the headmaster.

“Very well then, I’ll send Filch to retrieve you during class,” Dumbledore said pleasantly before turning and gliding away.

Blair let out a groan and dropped his forehead onto Harry’s shoulder, muttering, “I played myself,” as David gave a soft, judging hiss of agreement. Mission failed successfully.

“What do you think this is about?” Harry asked, curious, tilting his head slightly.

“Who knows? I’ve done so many illegal things by now, it could be practically anything,” Blair said with a shrug.

Hermione dropped into the seat across from them. “Good morning, Harry. Blair,” she said calmly, spreading butter on her toast with the precision of someone trying very hard to look casual.

She was doing that thing, where people act extra nonchalant to prove they don’t care, when in reality, they care deeply.

“Morning,” Blair mumbled, snuggling back into Harry and closing his eyes. “Wake me up when it’s time for class. I need a power nap, and this is one very comfy pillow.” With that, he drifted off, using the Chosen One as his human cushion without a single trace of shame.

He could hear more people arriving, definitely Ron squealing something about snakes at the Gryffindor table, followed by Harry shushing him in a harsh whisper, insisting Blair needed his beauty sleep.

The noise around the table grew, but Blair was floating in that perfect in-between place, half-dreaming, half-aware, wrapped in warmth.

When Blair finally opened his eyes, the entire train gang was gathered around the table. He blinked at them, then stretched like a cat who owned the place.

“Oh hey, guys. Sorry, needed a nap. How was your evening yesterday?” he asked, mostly directing the question at Neville and Ron, since the others were still labeled as pending acquaintance in his mental files.

“Umm… you do know this is the Gryffindor table, right?” Ron asked.

“Oh yeah, I’m not color blind, just needed my Harry time for the day,” Blair said, stretching his back again with a yawn. Harry’s arm was still wrapped around him, perfectly intact.

See? You can be friends with the Mini-Dark-Lord, Harry wasn't burning. In fact, Harry looked downright smug as he shot a pointed look at Neville.

“Listen, Blair, I-I’m sorry about what I said yesterday about my gran. I didn’t mean it-” Neville began, words tumbling out fast and anxious.

“Sounded to me like you did,” Harry said, a bit sharp, his tone more defensive than Blair expected. Ron and Hermione both glanced over, clearly picking up on the tension.

“Harry! Come on, he’s trying to apologize, and he thinks I’m pretty. I’ll definitely hear him out,” Blair said with a grin, tossing Neville a wink. Neville turned bright red.

“S-so I just wanted to say sorry,” Neville stammered, wringing his hands.

“I said some nasty stuff and it wasn’t okay. You’re nice and I do agree with Hermione, y-you’re not- I-I mean-” He tripped over his words so hard Blair was half-expecting to see him fall off the bench from sheer embarrassment. Oh, poor Neville.

“It’s all good, all forgiven. Seeing your faces at the Sorting was worth it all,” Blair said with a smirk, poking his tongue out at them. The image of half the Gryffindor table gaping in horror had officially become one of his core memories.

“Yeah, you did us a dirty one, didn’t you?” one of the twins said.

“Quite brilliant, if you ask me. We were spreading it all over the train that you had horns and a tail, just so you know,” Twin Two added cheerfully, proud of the PR campaign.

“Yeah, that was my own propaganda, it was funny. I thank you for your service to the Mini-Dark-Lord,” Blair said with a bow of his head. Everyone around the table winced in unison.

“Blair, this isn’t helping,” Harry whispered, leaning in with a look that said please stop before someone sends an owl to the Ministry.

“Well, you told me to be myself,” Blair whispered back.

“I’m starting to see your point when you say it might not work,” Harry muttered, peeking at Blair through his fingers.

Blair patted his hand sympathetically. “It’s okay, you’re new to managing public relations disasters. I thrive in them.”

Classes began, and they were just as dreadful as Blair had feared. He barely managed to keep himself upright during the endless theoretical parts, slumping in his seat like a decorative pillow with a pulse. His notes looked more like doodles than anything remotely useful.

They had Transfiguration with the Gryffindors, but the moment Blair walked in, Ron had already claimed the seat next to Harry. So Blair ended up paired with Zabini, which was honestly cool, Zabini was quiet and twitchy though. Probably still feeling unwell.

They were handed matches and told to turn them into needles. Blair didn’t even bother pulling out his stick, he saved that for the flashy stuff.

With a casual swish of his hand, the match shimmered and snapped into a perfect silver needle. Zabini stared at him, eyes wide.

Professor McGonagall looked over his shoulder, her eyes sharp. “I didn’t hear the spell or see your wand, Mr. Black.”

Blair felt his cheeks warm under her stare. “Ohh, umm… magical inheritance, Professor. I only use spells and the sti- wand for more complex stuff.” She simply nodded, calm as ever.

“Really clean work, Mr. Black. Five points to Slytherin,” Professor McGonagall said before moving on. Blair blinked, stunned, he was actually in the positive for house points. Was this personal growth? Luck? Bribery? Didn’t matter.

Harry shot him a pleased look from his seat, clearly proud, already having turned his own match into a needle. Blair gave him a smug little nod in return.

In History of Magic, Blair was mentally checked out, using the lecture as background noise for internal daydreaming, when Filch shuffled in and grumbled his name.

The man looked downright offended that he had to personally escort Blair to the headmaster’s office. And yet skipping class? That was a win.

“Ah, Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said as Blair stepped into the office. Blair paused, eyes scanning the room. Okay, wow. He couldn’t lie, this place was impressive. Books, shiny things, mysterious ticking devices, all on brand.

“Hey, Monarch of Hogwarts, I am here,” Blair announced, stepping forward.

“Do you know what I need to talk about with you, Mr. Black?” Dumbledore asked, offering Blair a suspicious-looking candy from a bowl that looked like it could bite back. Blair declined with a polite shake of his head. he had a strict don’t eat anything handed to you by cryptic old men with policy.

“Oh, I’m not doing the self-incrimination thing, I was raised by Andromeda Tonks, don’t forget,” Blair said with a sly smile, settling into the chair like he owned it. “How can I help you, Headmaster?”

“Care to please read this ad?” the Headmaster, slash Monarch of Hogwarts, asked, handing Blair the very ad he’d crafted that morning with love, glitter, and mild psychological warfare. Blair took it delicately, eyes scanning the page like he had never seen it before in his life.

“All first-year Slytherins are invited to an introduction game-” Blair began

“The last part, if you would, Mr. Black.”

“Participation is not mandatory, but note: you will enter the Mini-Dark-Lord blacklist if you don’t come.” Blair blinked up at the Headmaster.

"What of it, Monarch of Hogwarts?” Blair asked, tilting his head.

“This kind of language won’t be tolerated, Mr. Black,” Dumbledore said, voice calm but firm.

“Well, people are doing it behind my back, so I just took the narrative into my own hands, you know,” Blair said with a bright smile.

“No, I don’t,” Dumbledore replied, his tone crisp. “Please refrain from using it in the future.”

“Okay… I’ll have to change a bunch of notebook covers, though,” Blair mumbled, slouching slightly.

“And regarding the Sorting Hat-” Dumbledore began, steepling his fingers in that I’m trying very hard not to sigh out loud way.

"It’s staying pink, sorry, suits him better,” Blair huffed.

“Well, Mr. Black, I’ll have to take twenty points from Slytherin in that case,” Dumbledore said calmly. Oof. That happened quicker than Blair expected.

“But I will award Slytherin thirty points for your excellent Transfiguration work. That will be all, Mr. Black. I did rather like the introduction game initiative,” Dumbledore added with a small smile.

Blair gave a deep bow. Because it just felt like the right move. “Thank you, oh Monarch of Hogwarts.”

That man really did need to stop throwing around house points like confetti. Still, Blair did the math, net gain of fifteen points today. A win was a win, and he would absolutely be bragging about it by lunch. With charts.

Chapter Text

About ten tiny Slytherins clustered in a circle ahead, whispering and gawking. In the center, David had claimed the spotlight, coiled smugly and hissing cheerfully at his pint-sized audience. One dared to reach out, and David gave them a warning flick of the tongue, the royal decree of “worship from a distance, peasant.”

The mini humans flinched at every hiss, clearly failing to grasp that David considered this polite conversation and not a death threat.

“Thank you for showing up! David’s already kicked off without me, classic. He’s been my pet since I was five, raised in the Black main house, so yes, he’s a little extra. I vote we make him our year’s official mascot, raise your hand if you're scared to say no!”

Blair flailed through an enthusiastic symphony of hand gestures while talking, which proved difficult considering one arm was busy cradling a ball.

The Slytherins nodded and raised their hands with the stiff cheer of kids volunteering at wandpoint. David hissed in smug approval, basking in the glory of his newly claimed cult.

“Amazing! So, this ball’s got a Levitation Charm on it. Hold it, and you’ll float a bit, nothing extreme, promise,” Blair added quickly, spotting the sea of tiny, terrified faces staring at the ball.

“You’ll need to balance a bit. Whoever’s got the ball says their name, an animal starting with the same letter, and their first accidental magic,” Blair explained, beaming like he’d just invented Quidditch.

“Then you just toss the ball to someone who hasn’t spoken yet. But first, we’ll do a practice round so you can get used to floating,” Blair said cheerfully, already casting the charm with the excitement of someone launching a mildly cursed group activity.

He popped a few inches off the floor and wobbled midair, arms out looking like a seagull finding its center.

“Wow! I want a go!” shouted Crabbe, the only one not looking at Blair in terror.

“Thanks to our first brave volunteer. Here, Crabbe!” Blair said, tossing him the ball and plopping to the floor with the elegance of a dropped cauldron.

Crabbe floated a bit, flailed once, then steadied with a grin. “This is so fun!” he yelled, and the others stopped looking ready to bolt for the dungeons.

“Go on, pass the ball around to get used to it. Then we’ll start. David’s judging and will pick the best story,” Blair said. David hissed, very much in favor of this newfound power.

One by one, they took turns with the ball, floating and pulling ridiculous faces midair. Laughter spread, and Blair grinned, pleased the tension had finally melted a bit.

“Alright, let’s begin. Toss it here,” Blair said. Tracey threw him the ball with a giggle and a blush.

“So hey, I’m Blair Black. My animal is... oh, a Boggart! Extra points for it being magical,” he declared. David nodded, clearly approving.

“Figures,” his roommate muttered, eyeing Blair.

“Oh, Blaise, you crack me up,” Blair laughed, while Blaise stared at him in pure horror.

“How did he hear that?” Blaise whimpered. Another boy, whose name Blair hadn’t caught, patted him on the back with the solemn pity usually reserved for doomed men.

“So, first magical accident... hmm, let’s see. Well, it wasn’t really an accident. I don’t do things by accident,” Blair said, flipping his braid with the confidence of someone who caused chaos on purpose since birth.

“When I was about one, there was a big raid on our house. Dumbledore and a bunch of Aurors burst in right as I made my first famous pink lights,” Blair said proudly, casting one for effect. The shimmering glow lit up between them. Several kids gasped. His roommate whimpered. Blair smirked. Yeah, he knew it was impressive.

“So I was playing with a bunch of lights when Dumbledore burst in and started twitching. Pretty sure I wasn’t the Dark artifact they were looking for. So I went, ‘It’s all cool, Monarch of Hogwarts, I’ll just make them pink,’ and boom, pink lights. Still, they looked tense and sort of threatened my, uh, my bio mom. So I hit them with, ‘Now behold, my pink fireball!’” Blair said, turning the glow into a flaming pink orb with a proud flourish.

“My poor house-elf fainted, again, just for the record, and Dumbledore stood there blinking at me, completely gobsmacked. So yeah, first magic was threatening the Monarch of Hogwarts with a fireball. If that somehow loses us house points, my bad,” Blair said breezily.

“Alright, next…” He scanned the crowd and lobbed the ball to the brown-haired boy beside his roommate.

The boy caught the ball but blinked at Blair, stunned. So did everyone else. Blair just grinned back, radiant and unbothered, as if casually threatening Dumbledore with pyrotechnics was the natural next step after teething.

Apparently, the boy's name was Theodore Nott. “Ha! Why Nott?” Blair giggled, making everyone flinch. It was a completely random giggle, sharp and a bit unhinged, Blair will try to tone it down.

So Nott had accidentally set the house curtains on fire, respectable, Blair approved. Crabbe somehow made a mountain of candy duplicate itself, which frankly sounded useful. Draco, surprisingly, had vanished all his mom’s jewelry into his dad’s pocket. Said dad had been in the middle of a Very Important Ministry meeting when his robes started giving birth to necklaces. Blair nearly applauded. Iconic behavior.

The laughter grew louder with each turn. Blair watched with satisfaction as everyone loosened up, wobbling midair while confessing magical disasters from their childhood era.

David gave a firm hiss and slithered to Draco’s feet, declaring him the winner with all the ceremony of a royal decree. Blair nodded. Fair enough. Vanishing jewelry into a politician’s pocket deserved a trophy. Usually, said politician manages that trick without any magical assistance.

Tracey came close, though, she’d made a pile of cutlery break into a full tap dance after watching the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast. Blair nearly collapsed laughing. The rest of the year didn’t get the reference. Blair wiped a tear and muttered, “Uncultured swine, the lot of you.”

Blair decided to steal Tracey and whisked her away with a “come, sidekick.” The two of them snuck back into the castle giggling, while the rest of the year remained outside, still floating around and pelting each other with the levitating ball.

“T-that was fun!” Tracey said, giggling and trying to catch her breath.

“Why the flying ball though?” she asked, as David curled up in her hands and allowed her the rare honor of petting him, eyes half-lidded.

“Well, I was just planning to toss the ball around, nothing fancy. But when I mentioned it to the prefect, he gasped at the horror of us playing a Muggle game,” Blair said, smirking. “So I added some spice.” He winked, and Tracey blushed.

“Yeah, I get it. They need magic in every single thing, right? It’s so annoying,” Tracey huffed.

 “Pansy can’t even brush her hair without her enchanted brush, and she teases me a lot…” Her voice trailed off, shrinking to a mumble as she looked down at David.

“Oh, just ignore her. Let her entertain herself and see how long she survives. Trust me, if that girl were a spice, she’d be flour. Don’t let her get under your skin,” Blair said with a toss of his braid. Tracey let out a surprised snort-laugh, nearly dropping David, who hissed in offended.

“You’re actually kind of nice, Blair,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It was, Blair had to admit, kind of cute. Not that he was about to say that out loud. David would never let him live it down.

“Ohh, you too, Trace! Does that mean we’re friends now? Can we braid each other’s hair? I’m being quite serious, I felt fancy all day thanks to your braid,” Blair said with a bright smile.

Tracey batted her eyes at him and gave a shy nod. Hell yeah! Another friend secured. Blair mentally fist-pumped himself.

“What are you doing?!” snapped a voice. A very green pair of eyes glared at them, narrowed with righteous fury and the emotional stability of a wet cat.

“Harry! Hey, my co-parent snake husband,” Blair beamed, entirely unfazed.

“We just wrapped up the introduction game and were heading back to the dorm. How were the rest of your classes? Learn anything life-altering or just more ways to get detention?”

“H-husband?” Harry choked, eyes wide. Tracey pulled a face so sour it could’ve curdled a potion, scooting closer to Blair.

“David needs a stable home environment. I don’t want him to be,” Blair whispered, covering David’s tiny ear holes, “a bastard.”

“We’ll fake marry for the snake authorities,” Blair giggled, watching Harry turn redder and redder.

“O-oh, o-okay. Should I get us rings? I mean, I do have the money to support us, you know? And I-” Harry started, flustered. Blair cut him off with a loud laugh.

“Oh, you’re so precious! Get us snake bracelets that look like David. Then everyone will know we’re his parents,” Blair said, beaming at his own brilliance.

“Yeah! I’ll do that! See you tomorrow, we’ve got Potions together. Bye, Tracey,” Harry added, the last part dripping with the enthusiasm of a boy forced to compliment broccoli.

“Yay, friendship bracelets!” Blair cheered, just in time to catch Harry silently facepalming himself.

“Okay, Trace, let’s head back to the dorm,” Blair said, grabbing her hand.

Through a giggle, Tracey asked, “What’s the hurry?” as Blair practically dragged her down the corridor.

“I gotta move the plot along, let’s go!!” Blair said, dead serious. Tracey looked confused but giggled anyway, clearly accepting her role in whatever subplot she’d just been cast into.

He fell asleep early that night, completely drained from the full Gossip Girl operation he’d run the night before. He still had to get to Gretchen soon, and really hoped the Apparition would work, preferably without alerting the entire British Auror Office.

The next morning, Blair was up early, getting his hair braided by Tracey while scribbling a little note to his darling Harry with the handwriting of a caffeinated pixie.

Adding powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? Boom, you’ve just brewed yourself a Draught of Living Death.
Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar? Technically, in the stomach of a goat, but if you want to serve sass, say the supply cabinet.
What’s the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane? Trick question. There isn’t one. They're the same.

Blair firmly decided he would not let Professor Snape bully Harry. Even if said professor was, regrettably, kind of hot in a morally questionable, brooding bat sort of way.

“Harry, good morning!” Blair chirped, practically launching himself at the boy with the energy of a sugar-rushed Puffskein.

“So I had this dream, crazy stuff. Our resident bat professor’s gonna try to undermine you in class, and I simply won’t allow it!” Blair declared. “The Hat said I’m a Seer, so I’m testing the waters. He’ll ask you these questions to embarrass you, give him these answers,” he added with a wink, slipping Harry the cheat sheet.

“I just asked if you want juice or tea,” Harry replied, staring at him blankly.

“Are you serious? You think you’re a Seer now, on top of everything? Merlin,” Harry mumbled, sliding both the juice and the tea toward Blair knowing he’d need hydration to support that level of delusion.

“We’ll see. Just study those questions, worst case, you end up knowing some extra stuff,” Blair said with the smug confidence of someone who considered academic sabotage a love language.

“You’re the one who says extra knowledge is a waste of… um… GB space?” Harry said, still confused with that.

“It is! And I’m not paying eight galleons ninety-nine a month for extra space. Now focus, imagine the look on Professor Snape’s face when you get it right.” That mental image seemed to win Harry over.

When Potions started, Professor Snape made an entrance worthy of the Wizengamot stage, robes billowing like a storm cloud. Blair let out a delighted fangirl squeal, then side-eyed Ron before sliding into the same station as Harry, ready for the show.

As Snape read through the attendance roll, he gave the slightest wince at Blair’s name, rude, and came to a full stop when he reached Harry, clearly gearing up for a performance.

“Ah, Mr. Potter, our new celebrity. Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” Snape asked, an evil twinkle in his eyes that screamed he was about to enjoy this far too much.

“Oh, um… Draught of Living Death, sir,” Harry said quickly. Hell yeah, Seer Blair for the win. Not that he was one, but he was absolutely monetizing the illusion.

Oh, the look on the poor professor’s face, pure disbelief. He shot Blair an almost accusatory glare, and Blair responded with the sweetest, most innocent smile he could master.

“Mr. Black, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?” Snape drawled, his voice dripping with the promise of academic doom.

Oh, this was going to be fun. “In your supplies cabinet,” Blair said without blinking. The professor stared back, expression flat, probably debating whether to deduct points or just throw him out the window.

“I’ll get real intimate with the stomach of a goat, sir,” Blair added at last, wearing the kind of polite smile that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or talking from experience.

“What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane, Mr. Potter?”

“I know this one! It’s a trick question!” Harry said proudly, sitting up straighter.

“And why is that, Mr. Potter?” Snape pressed.

“Oh shoot, I only memorized that part,” Harry whispered to Blair in a panic.

“Professor, they’re the same. Duh,” Blair said, swooping in to rescue Harry.

“Is your name Mr. Potter, Mr. Black?” Snape asked, unamused.

“It could be in a few years,” Blair joked, making the entire class wince while Harry turned red.

“It’s a joke, don’t worry,” Blair whispered to Harry. Harry didn’t look happy at that begin a joke if anything.

“Well, why aren’t you writing it down?” Snape growled at the class, clearly irritated he hadn’t managed to bully any first-years today. Well, the lesson is still young.

They were set to brew the Boil-Cure Potion, something Blair could manage in his sleep. He showed Harry the automatic stir charm he’d perfected for it and demonstrated how to chop the potion salad ingredients.

Soon they had nothing to do, the potion cheerfully brewing itself under Blair’s charm while he lounged like a proud parent watching his child win a Quidditch match.

“Mr. Black, what is the meaning of this?” Professor Snape demanded.

“Why do you assume it’s me?” Blair asked, mock-offended, clutching his chest in theatrical shock. Professor Snape merely raised a brow, the universal sign for don’t test me, child.

“Yeah, it’s me, Mario. Anyway, this is my very own self-stir charm, designed specifically for this potion. It stirs exactly as needed for perfect results,” Blair said smugly.

“Show me the spellwork,” the professor demanded.

Blair flipped open his self-made grimoire and presented it with a flourish. Professor Snape read over the page with laser focus, his eyes scanning each line as if deciphering the secrets of the universe, or looking for a reason to yell.

“Ten points to Slytherin for advanced and clever charm work,” he said flatly, already turning away.

“Can we split it with Gryffindor? Five to me and five to Harry, he was my moral support,” Blair asked. The look on Professor Snape’s face made it abundantly clear they could not. Fair enough.

Ron looked genuinely impressed that Blair had even dared to ask.

“But do tell me, Mr. Black, why is your notebook titled 'The Mini-Dark-Lord Grimoire', when our dear Headmaster explicitly told you not to use that language?” the professor asked, while the rest of the class winced at Blair’s self-appointed nickname.

Blair facepalmed. “Knew I forgot something,” he said, vanishing the title. It was still there, of course, just invisible. No way was he deleting his PR brand just because Dumbledore told him to.

Gryffindor lost ten points when Neville’s cauldron half-melted, half-exploded, and Professor Snape somehow decided it was Harry’s fault.

“Oh, great Seer, you didn’t see that one coming?” Harry asked, glaring at Blair with irritation.

“Oh, I did, but I forgot, sorry. You were the only thing on my mind,” Blair said apologetically. That instantly erased any trace of Harry’s anger, leaving him red-faced instead. Yay. Blair wasn’t sure what he’d done, but he’d take the win.

All in all, the lesson went fine, though Harry looked a bit bummed about Professor Snape’s treatment of him. Blair got it, the man clearly had a personal grudge against Harry and Gryffindors in general.

Next was DADA with the Hufflepuffs, and Blair was about to come face-to-face, or face-to-back, with his sperm donor. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that, other than mildly nauseous.

It was anticlimactic, really. “B-b-b-lair B-black,” Quirrell mumbled, and Blair raised his hand with a bored, unbothered smile. The professor stared at him a little longer, looking nervous, and Blair could tell he was trying to fit the pieces together behind this innocent façade. Blair didn’t flinch, oh no, he was absolutely leaning into his mean girl era here.

“H-h-h-ere,” Blair mocked, raising his hand with exaggerated innocence, earning a few snickers from the braver students and a horrified cough from Quirrell.

“At least stutter clearly, Merlin,” Blair said with a flick of his braid. He’d never mock someone with a real stutter, but knowing Quirrell was faking it made him not care in the slightest. Also, the man had Blair’s sperm donor stuck to the back of his head, so… fair game.

Quirrell and the rest of the class stared in shock, while Draco snorted beside him, clearly approving. Oh, his menace of a cousin, actually proud of Blair for going full mean girl. Quirrell said nothing and quickly moved on.

Blair spent the rest of the class sending wandless flicks at the back of Quirrell’s head, knowing he was really flicking his sperm donor. Quirrell, baffled, spent the entire lesson swatting at an invisible fly, growing increasingly twitchy with every hit.

Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were laughing, fully aware Blair was behind it. Tracey shot him a disapproving look, while the Hufflepuffs stared on, wide-eyed, as if witnessing a war crime in progress.

After class, Tracey caught up to him as he left with Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle. “You were really mean, Blair. I thought you were different. Good luck braiding your hair alone tomorrow,” she huffed before storming off, leaving Blair staring after her in mild horror at the true consequences of his actions.

Ouch. Yeah, Blair deserved that one. He hadn’t really thought it through, he’d just been so consumed with anger, knowing that was the man who’d made Harry an orphan, that he couldn’t stop himself.

“Ignore her. That teacher is ridiculous, wait until my father hears about this,” Draco said with a scowl. Ah yes, the famous Draco line, delivered with all the entitlement of a pure-blood prince.

“No, she’s right. I’d never act like that to someone decent. Quirrell’s evil, trust me, he deserves it. I wouldn’t bully a teacher just for being soft, just so you know,” Blair said before walking away from them too, braid swinging with righteous indignation.

He was annoyed they instantly assumed he’d bullied a teacher for fun, just because it was exactly the sort of thing Draco would do, and the worst part was, it made him feel awful.

Ahhh, why should he feel bad about bullying the Dark Lord? And seriously, how could he be a DADA professor when he was literally the Dark Arts? Ahhh.

Blair stalked off, thoroughly annoyed and simmering with anger at the entire ordeal.

At their first flying lesson, Harry took his place beside Blair, who was already eyeing the school brooms like they might give him splinters out of spite.

“I heard from the Hufflepuffs you were mean to Professor Quirrell. Why? Did Draco make you?” Harry asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Please, as if Draco could make me do anything. Don’t you have more faith in me, Harry? Our little test proved I’m sort of a Seer, and trust me, Quirrell deserves this and more. I can’t tell you exactly why, but I’m going to handle it, okay? Just… don’t be mad at me.”

Blair hoped now more than ever to keep Harry on his side, because if he lost him over this, it would sting worse than a Bludger to the face.

“Oh, did you see something about him? O-okay… I trust you. If you say he did something bad, then I believe you. He just looks so…” Harry trailed off, clearly wrestling with the right words, as if “skittish onion in a turban” wasn’t a valid description.

“Soft? Gentle? It’s all an act! I’ve seen it. He’s planning to set a troll on us so he can sneak into the third floor. He wants something of Dumbledore’s. A troll, Harry! Someone could get hurt. But I’ll stop him,” Blair said, making no effort to hide any of it from Harry.

Harry’s eyes went wide. “He plans to steal from Dumbledore and set a troll loose in the school?” he asked, disbelief dripping from every word. Blair nodded, deadly serious.

That seemed to light a fire in Harry’s eyes. “Explains why you acted like that. You hate bullies. I do too. I’ll help you, whatever you need,” he promised. Blair, touched, promptly hugged him right there in front of the entire flying class, earning a few snickers and one very dramatic eye-roll from Draco.

People were starting to get used to seeing the two of them together. “You’re the very best. Thanks for having faith in me,” Blair whispered, and Harry’s ears went pink enough to match the Gryffindor crest.

“Always,” Harry whispered back. “Sorry for doubting you.” Blair grinned.

“You should call me out if you think I’m doing something wrong. I’ll listen, and I’ll do the same for you. Deal?” Blair said holding out his pinky.

“Deal.” They sealed it with a pinky swear and a thumb kiss, something they always did. A promise.

“Stand next to your brooms. We’re about to start,” Madam Hooch instructed. She went on to explain how to summon the brooms, pacing in front of the class.

Harry’s broom shot straight into his hand, obedient as a well-trained owl.

Blair tried next, but the moment he said “Up,” the broom shot up with such force it flipped over and slammed into the ground, leaving a dent in the grass. “Oopsie,” he said brightly.

“Oopsie?! Mr. Black, you are not summoning a Patronus, use a little less magic!” Madam Hooch practically screamed. Harry was clutching his stomach against Blair’s side, absolutely losing it with laughter.

The rest of the class looked mildly traumatized, giving Blair a wide berth. On his next attempt, he dialed back the magic and managed to summon the broom neatly into his hand, offering Madam Hooch a smug little bow.

They were given more instructions, and mid-sentence Blair suddenly remembered something extremely important.

“Ummm… Harry, Ron? I may have a slight fear of heights,” Blair admitted, suddenly aware he was about to climb onto a flying death machine disguised as a broom.

Both boys looked at him. “You’ll be fine, Blair. I’ll stick with you, worst case, just stay close to the ground.” But Blair wasn’t listening; he was already envisioning his obituary in the Daily Prophet.

“Oh, hell no, get me down right now!” Blair screamed.

“Mate, you’re still on the ground,” Ron said, looking both worried and mildly concerned for Blair’s grip on reality.

“Oh, look at that, you’re right. Feet on the ground,” Blair said in relief. No way, absolutely no way, he was doing this. He needed a distraction. Now… when did Neville, ah, there he goes.

Neville lifted off the ground and promptly fell, dropping his Remembrall in the process. Sorry, Neville, Blair knew far too many unfortunate things that were about to happen to the boy, but he wasn’t in a rush to stop them. Selective memory was a gift.

Madam Hooch took Neville to the infirmary, leaving the class unattended. Rookie mistake. Blair was already planning to use his concealment charm when she returned, she’d done attendance, he was marked present, and it wasn’t ditching if he was still in class incognito, just… not flying.

Or, at the very least, it was smart ditching.

“Oh, look at that, the fat-ass dropped something,” his dear cousin drawled, and Blair felt a headache blooming.

“Draco, for everything good and pure in the world, give it back to one of the Gryffindors right now, or I swear you won’t have eyebrows for the rest of the term!” Blair yelled, well past his limit with the day’s nonsense.

“You might be a Slytherin, but you need to learn how we do things here. And we do not let Gryffindors get away with anything,” Draco said. Blair had to hand it to him, he was the first to stand up to Blair without flinching. It was… something.

The rest of the Slytherins clearly agreed Blair shouldn't be provoked, because a chorus of gasps rippled through the group. “Draco, s-stop it! He’ll kill you!” Zabini shouted, sounding genuinely alarmed.

“You don’t know what he does at night-”

“Zabini, same goes for you! Snitches get stitches!” Blair shouted at him too. Everyone immediately took a step back as the ground beneath Blair began to tremble, leaves and pebbles lifting into the air.

Draco swallowed but didn’t back down, the little shit. “Well, come and get it then,” he taunted before shooting into the air. Blair just sighed, took a deep breath, and prepared for the inevitable chaos.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just use-” Before Blair could finish, Harry was already in the air, chasing after Draco like a Gryffindor-shaped missile.

“Ron, what is wrong with you people? You’re giving me a headache!” Blair groaned, well and truly done with the day’s circus.

“Accio Draco’s broom,” Blair said, and the broom shot straight toward him. Draco yelped, tossing the ball away as he started to fall, and the entire class erupted into screaming.

Harry dove after the ball and caught it with an impressively smooth grab, while Blair used his magic to snag Draco mid-fall, stopping him just before he hit the ground. Draco, now dangling in midair, was whimpering.

“The next time I ask you to do something and you deliberately don’t, I’ll let you fall!” Blair snapped, turning to the trembling Slytherins. He was completely done with being nice today, he’d tried, and his cousin was still the same little shit he’d always been.

“Mate, remind me never to piss you off,” Ron muttered beside him.

Harry landed, still laughing, clutching the ball. “Blair, that was brilliant! Did you see Malfoy’s face?!” he gasped, grinning.

Draco now stood with eyes glassy, looking moments away from tears.

“I told you to just give it back, Draco,” Blair said, feeling a small pinch of regret at the sight of his cousin’s almost-crying eyes. What was wrong with him today?

“Well, I didn’t think you’d actually try to kill me!” Draco shouted back, voice cracking.

Blair rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to kill you, sheesh. I caught you, didn’t I?” he said, sounding almost apologetic, almost.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Professor McGonagall demanded, sweeping toward them with the speed and precision of an incoming Bludger.

“Malfoy stole Neville’s Remembrall,” Hermione said, voice sharp with disapproval. “Harry was trying to get it back from him, and Blair tried to help by using Accio on Malfoy’s broom.”

“Oh yes, I’ve seen this part. Mr. Black, why in the name of Merlin didn’t you just Accio the ball?!” McGonagall demanded. Oh. Yeah… he could have done that.

“Sorry… didn’t think of that,” Blair said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “But I did catch him!”

The professor looked baffled. “Five points from Slytherin, Mr. Black, for endangering another student. And five points from you, Mr. Malfoy, for taking property that isn’t yours. I’m very disappointed in you boys.”

“And Mr. Potter, don’t think I’m done with you. Come with me,” she said, turning sharply on her heel. Harry shot Blair a panicked look before hurrying after her.

Blair glanced around at the group of students, a pang hitting his chest. He’d been off-kilter ever since that lesson with Quirrell. He tried to play it cool, but something about that class had knocked him just enough off balance to feel it lingering.

Hell no. He wasn’t about to let his sperm donor win. Blair took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” Blair finally said. Draco glanced up at him through bloodshot eyes, still looking wary.

"What?"

“I said I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, it wasn’t funny. But you know how shitty you feel right now? Neville feels the same. So no matter what you think of him, whether you’ve got more money or different political views, we all feel shitty when shitty things are done to us.”

Draco looked at him, and it seemed some of it was sinking in. “And I feel really shitty for making you feel shitty, so sorry. I won’t do it again. You’re my friend, and I don’t treat my friends that way. Don’t treat people like that either, okay?” Blair said. Draco gave a small nod.

“This must be a world record for the use of the word ‘shitty,’” Draco finally said, and Blair couldn’t help but laugh. They shared a look before Draco ran over and pulled him into a hug.

“I’m sorry too. I’ll even apologize to Longbottom, okay?” Draco whispered, and Blair just nodded, deciding not to ruin the moment with a sarcastic comment.

“Wow, he really is the snake whisperer,” Ron said, and Hermione nodded beside him, looking equal parts impressed and exasperated.

“Alright, let’s stop with the drama. I’m sorry for screaming, and I won’t set your eyebrows on fire, well, not on purpose. Want to show me how to fly this broom?” Blair asked, his voice a little shaky, still very much afraid of the flying death machine.

Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco looked far too happy to help, even after all the death threats.

“Oh my god, I’m going to die! Am I dying?! Why is it so windy?!” Blair screamed the moment he was in the air, clinging to the broom knowing it was actively plotting his murder.

“Blair, you’re flying fine, open your eyes,” Crabbe called, sounding both amused and mildly concerned.

Blair cracked one eye open, then the other, he was flying, and actually in control. After a few more loops, he pulled off a flip. “This is the best thing ever! Why haven’t I ever done this before?!” he screamed, pure glee in his voice.

“Mate, you were terrified holding a broom on the ground five minutes ago, you’re unbelievable!” Ron shouted up at him.

“He’s straight-up mental,” Blaise said, shaking his head.

“Oh, you’re so funny, Blaise,” Blair said, letting out a huge, theatrical laugh, the kind that made it unclear if he was genuinely amused or just mocking him.

“Why does he keep hearing me?!” Blaise yelped, genuinely shocked.

“Please, my ears are programmed to hear gossip,” Blair said smugly, pulling another loop just to show off.

All in all, it turned out to be a decent flying lesson.

That afternoon before dinner, Blair decided to test the Apparition rune he’d made. He painted it on himself with a glittery marker, because style mattered even in magic experiments, and focused hard. Destination: Hogsmeade.

He also didn’t know how the Trace would react to his wandless magic, since it wasn’t anywhere near accidental magic and definitely didn’t involve a wand. Before this, the Trace hadn’t tracked him, benefits of not being in Hogwarts and all.

He wondered if he could dodge the Trace by using magic without his wand. Best way to find out? Test it on Hogsmeade.

He slipped into a bathroom stall and let the familiar warmth of magic fill him. In a blink, he was gone, reappearing in a Hogsmeade alley. Now to see if any Aurors suddenly showed up to ruin his evening.

Another thing he needed in Hogsmeade was flowers, for Tracey. He’d messed up, and now it was apology time. Nymphy had told him that whenever Lucy was mad at her, she always started apologizing by bringing flowers. So that’s exactly what Blair was going to do.

He found a shop and settled on a crystal, silvery-blue flower that was charmed to glow at night. He hoped Tracey would like it, or at least be too dazzled by it to stay mad.

The best Gossip Girl money could buy.

He Apparated back to Hogwarts, knowing that if the Trace had caught him, the Monarch of Hogwarts would find out soon enough.

Nobody saw him coming or going. He headed to the common room and spotted Tracey, then stood there like an idiot, holding the flower and staring until she finally noticed, her cheeks turning bright red.

“Hey, Tracey, can I have a minute?” he asked. She nodded and walked toward him, while a chorus of “ohhhh”s rippled through the common room and Pansy looked pissed.

“What is it?” she tried to ask with an angry tone, but it fell apart the moment she saw the flower. Good thing Blair had taken notes from Nymphy on how to charm girls back from the brink.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been myself today. Please don’t tell anyone, but I’m a Seer, and I saw Quirrell doing some evil things. I’m going to stop him, I promise, but I can’t tell Dumbledore yet. I got angry in class and have been angry ever since. I apologized to Draco too though.” He finished and handed her the glowing flower.

She took the flower, her cheeks glowing nearly as bright as the charm on its petals.

“Oh wow, I didn’t know, Blair. But even though I’ve only known you for a short while, I just know you wouldn’t be mean without a reason. Umm… apology accepted,” she said, kissed his cheek, and ran off with the flower still glowing in her hand.

Blair stood there, stunned and blushing himself. Wow. Definitely get girls flowers. He couldn’t wait to tell Harry.

“Where’s my flowers?” Draco called after him with a grin, clearly enjoying himself far too much.

“Oh, bugger off. I got you three chocolates,” Blair said, dropping a pile of sweets in front of his little Slytherin gang.

“So, we’re good?” Blair asked Draco again. The boy answered with a sly smile.

"Definitely."

By nightfall, Blair was exhausted, but in his very rational opinion, that was the perfect time to steal the Philosopher’s Stone. He needed to get it before the plot progressed any further, and maybe, with his intervention, events would play out differently.

So, naturally, he threw on his darkest cloak, the sparkly one, obviously, and headed for the third-floor corridor, accompanied by David the snake and his violin. David was giving him the snake equivalent of a side-eye, muttering in Parseltongue, “This is stupid, this is so stupid,” with all the weary judgment of a long-suffering companion.

He reached the third floor and unlocked the door with a simple first-year spell. Seriously, Dumbledore had to be making it this easy on purpose.

Fluffy loomed before him, all slobber and too many heads. Blair proudly lifted his violin. “Time to shine, babe.” The moment he started playing, it sounded like a banshee wrestling a tuba at the bottom of a lake. Fluffy’s ears twitched in what could only be described as deep existential regret.

David hissed, “He’s going to eat you.”

Blair smiled serenely and continued to massacre a lullaby. Fluffy howled. Blair, blissfully unaware, mistook it for vocal harmonizing and swayed with the beat like a deranged conductor.

Finally, with one last soulful screech, Blair accidentally hit a note so high it probably broke a few glass potions bottles back in the dungeons, and Fluffy passed out. Blair winked at David. “Told you I’m getting better.”

“Sss, you made him pass out, not fall asleep. Not soothed, just unconscious,” David complained.

They dropped through the trapdoor, Blair casting a quick self-made NoBumpus Maximus to land like a dramatic feather. Devil’s Snare slithered up, vines ready to grab, until Blair clapped once and whispered, “Mood: Nope.”

The entire plant recoiled and shriveled like it had just been roasted on TikTok. Blair gave it a patronizing pat. “Good decision, shrubbery.” Once he climbed down, he made the plant unshrink, restoring it as if he’d never been there at all.

Next room. Flying keys buzzed angrily overhead. Blair didn't even look up. He summoned a paper airplane from his sleeve, whispered Confundo Avia, and sent it zooming around.

The keys, easily distracted, followed it in hypnotized formation as Blair strolled to the door and boop, magicked the lock open without touching the keyring. “Stealth level, majestic,” he whispered.

The chess room was a bit trickier, but only because Blair didn't want to deal with loud, stompy pieces. “Not today, sentient Legos.” He snapped his fingers.

The floor shimmered, and suddenly he was walking on an invisible bridge above the board. The chess pieces blinked and hissed in confusion as he ghosted over them. “Don’t mind me,” Blair muttered. “Just your local glitch in the Matrix.”

In the next chamber, there were troll boogies on the wall and the faint scent of regret. Blair wrinkled his nose and whipped out a hand sanitizer spell mid-air. “Ugh, boys’ bathroom vibes,” he gagged.

The troll was either asleep or pretending to be. Blair tiptoed past it with his Notice-Me-Not Deluxe, the one he uses for his Gossip Girl persona as well. Concealment charm to the rescue.

David sighed. “You’re glowing.”

“I always glow when I’m doing crimes.”

Potion riddle? Blair didn’t even see it. He just stared at the fire wall and whispered, “Darling, move.”

The fire parted like it had manners. “See, David? Even the flames respect me.”

Finally, the Mirror of Erised. Blair paused dramatically, did a full twirl, and whispered, “You know what I want. Promise I don't want to use it.” The mirror glowed faintly, then shuddered, before spitting the Philosopher’s Stone into his hand.

Blair tucked the Stone into his inner robe pocket, then smirked at his reflection, which winked back while throwing a bunch of glitter from the mirror. It was kind of creepy.

Hell yeah, he had the Stone in his possession, and not a single meddling headmaster in sight.

He Apparated straight back to his room, appearing in front of a very startled Blaise, who nearly dropped the book he was holding.

“What?! How?! Why do you smell like that?!” Blaise demanded, all very valid questions, in Blair’s opinion.

“Shhh, you’re dreaming,” Blair said smoothly, patting Blaise on the shoulder.

Blaise rolled over and yanked the blanket over his head. “You’re my night paralysis demon,” he muttered, but didn’t question him further.

“Fair. And sorry, got you some chocolate if it helps,” Blair said, tossing the treat to Blaise before heading off for a long, much-needed shower.

He hid the Stone exactly as planned, in a charmed chest only he could open, layered with concealment charms, then buried deep in the Forbidden Forest for good measure. No one was getting their hands on that Stone.

If Dumbledore wanted the Stone back, he’d have to help prove Blair’s brother’s innocence. All Blair had to do in the meantime was take down a troll and his sperm donor on Halloween. And steal a rat.

His brother was going to be home by Christmas, and nothing was stopping the mini–Dark Lord. Well… maybe just a sugar crash.