Six. The Prince That Was Promised

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It was December by the time Circe next found herself with Harry, and it couldn't have been under more miserable circumstances. Mr. Weasley had been attacked, supposedly, by a snake in the Department of Mysteries. Voldemort's snake, Nagini, seen by Harry in a nightmare. It was two in the morning when McGonagall ordered a bleary-eyed Circe to get dressed and prepare to return home via her own personal Floo, providing no other explanation than it was an urgent matter. As soon as the joyous Christmas season had begun, it was seemingly gone again, shrouded in a cloud of grief and worry. Not even Grimmauld Place could withstand it: It was once again housing almost all members of the Weasley family as they waited for news of their beloved father's fate.

If Circe had ever sat through a longer night than this one, she could not remember it. Enyo (the two of them were sharing a bed) suggested once, without any real conviction, that they prepare a sort of gift for the family to express their condolences, but Circe's look of disgust was answer enough. They mostly sat in silence under the covers, listening to the adults trek up and down the staircases, occasionally tossing and turning, speaking only to check the time, to wonder aloud what was happening with Mr. Weasley in St. Mungo's.

"What d'you suppose they meant when they said Potter was controlling the snake?" asked Enyo in barely a whisper. "That he did it on purpose?"

"Dunno," said Circe, because she really didn't. This was all far beyond her depth.

She remembered how she felt like Sirius escaping from Azkaban was the most difficult thing she was ever going to experience, wondering what life was like before Voldemort, Harry and Umbridge. A glance down at the back of her hand reminded her of the terrible truth:

I must not tell lies.

She almost felt dirty, contaminated, as though she were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to preach with the Order, to plot with her family...

Enyo suddenly suggested, "Maybe he's the weapon."

"The what?"

"What the grown ups didn't want us to hear." Enyo turned onto her back and laid very still, staring at the ceiling as it creaked with footsteps above. "There's a weapon now. That's why they're so scared of You-Know-Who this time."

Circe immediately became accusatory. "And how is it you know this?" she asked.

Her cousin shrugged. It felt childish to say her father told her.

"I don't believe he's a weapon," said Circe. "How could he be?"

"There are things we don't understand-bigger than us."

"Says who?"

This whole conversation, particularly its vagueness, stank of Regulus. She just wanted Enyo to admit it.

"How else did he know Mr. Weasley was being attacked?" said Enyo. "How did he see it if he was asleep? And why is his scar, the one You-Know-Who gave him, hurting all the time?"

A truly awful thought then occurred to her, one that made her insides squirm:

He's the weapon, she thought, and it was as though poison were pumping through her veins. He's the one Voldemort's trying to use, that's why they have guards around him everywhere he goes, it's not for his protection, it's for other people's, only it's not working... But why hasn't he attacked them yet? He's been in a house with Regulus and Voldemort must have seen, so why didn't he make Harry kill Regulus for being a traitor when he had the chance-?

Don't be ridiculous, Harry's not possessed, she told herself in an attempt to keep calm. Surely, she would have noticed after all those detentions together if a classmate of hers was under Voldemort's control.

"I still don't think so," she eventually admitted.

Enyo stifled a laugh. "Are you going soft on Potter all of a sudden?"

"Not me," said Circe, "Mika. She said Harry was chosen."

"Well, she says all sorts of things."

"Some of it could be true."

At twenty-past-seven in the morning, Circe rolled out of bed and stood up, spitting hair out of her face. She thought she heard Enyo mutter something, but when Circe turned to look at her, she was still apparently fast asleep.

Only Regulus was in the kitchen. He was sat bolt-upright, flicking through yesterday's Daily Prophet; there was a slight whiff of stale drink about him. Kreacher was loitering in the doorway to the hall, looking back malevolently as he hitched up his loincloth. The only sources of light were the fire and one guttering candle, which illuminated the remains of a messy supper. Circe assumed that the Weasleys had all finally managed to get some sleep, so sat at the head of the table, hunched against the wooden frame of her chair, keeping herself deliberately uncomfortable, determined not to fall back into a doze.

"What is it Muggles say," Regulus mused, "the early bird gets the worm?"

He flicked his wand and a steaming cup of peppermint tea assembled itself before Circe, though she barely had time to acknowledge it before Regulus was striking a match. He lowered the small, flickering flame just enough to set alight the end of the cigarette he'd lodged into his mouth.

"Couldn't sleep," she muttered grimly.

"Nightmares or worry?"

"The second." Circe paused before adding, "You don't think this was Potter's fault, do you?"

Regulus rubbed his stubbly face. "The fault is the Dark Lord's-and mine, I suppose. I knew he'd come back."

"But how can you kill the un-killable?"

She took a sip of her tea, but was really only drinking to have something to do with her hands. Her stomach was full of horrible hot, bubbling turmoil.

"Nobody's truly immortal," said Regulus matter-of-factly. "There's a flaw in every system. You think that when Potter defeated the Dark Lord there wasn't a piece of him still among us all these years? The very same piece that attached itself to Quirrell, to Riddle's diary, to Pettigrew? He's a parasite."

"Then why did you serve him?"

The little colour remaining in his face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he would quite like to berate his niece for her audacity, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm:

"Naivety, that old curse."

Circe flared up. "You were my age, you know. I'm not so naive that I want to join Voldemort."

Regulus bit back, "But you want to join Dumbledore."

"I want to join the Order."

"A noble endeavour, but one you won't succeed in."

Her cheeks reddened. "Why? Won't they have me?"

"Of course they'll have you," said her uncle, a slight humour to his tone. "But you'll want to break out quicker than you broke in. You're not a poster child, are you?" he asked.

When she was seven, Circe was told by Narcissa Malfoy she was a poster child for blood purity: a specimen that, despite her father's break from programming, held all the ideal qualities for a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. But that was when she was seven. Now sixteen, Circe was perhaps more of a defect than anything else.

"I know you see yourself as hard done by." Regulus was doing his best to come across as an equal. "This family, it's not for the weak, but we have to persevere. You don't want to be like your father, do you?"

Very rarely did Regulus mention his brother, so Circe thought she ought to listen hard to what he had to say.

"There are other ways to fight this. The Order is but one path-one of feckless courage and optimism you don't possess."

"I'm brave," she told him, albeit uncertainly.

"Of course." Because Regulus did think her to be brave. "But where do your loyalties lie? With yourself? Potter, Wizardkind, Dumbledore?"

Circe hesitated to answer, but before she could, he'd already said, "If it's anything but the latter, you won't make it with the Order. They claim they're better than us," he murmured, not wanting to be overheard, "but they're just the same. They want you to sign your life away to worship."

Despite his rationale, she still looked mutinous.

"You've lived both lives," she said. "Which one served you better?"

Since leaving the Death Eaters, Regulus found that nobody wanted to talk about it. The future was the only thing that mattered, and his past was something that could be scrubbed clean with a bit of effort. If Regulus did good, he'd be good. Now, here was his sixteen year-old niece asking for the truth of the matter. Was he content with being a terrible person? He thought so. He had fate and power trickling through his fingertips like grains of sand, Leda was right there by his side-

Leda.

An angel from above.

He'd been over it time and time again: Regulus and Leda were perfectly fine being bad people while they were still living, until something in her died and she became a figment of remorse. Everything she'd done, she said, was coming back to haunt her in the form of hounds biting at her heels. He didn't understand it until she was gone, and he was left holding the child, and a pit began to open in his stomach...

"You want to end all of this," said Regulus after a beat passed, "and tie it into a neat little bow. You want it to have a reason. Guess what, Circe? There's only one reason for it: Blood. That's all anyone cares about. One side wants purity, the other doesn't believe in it-so what do you think is going to happen to you, to all of this, when either of them wins?"

"You're pathetic."

Circe hadn't meant to say it so baldly; the words were forced from her out of sheer frustration. She wanted to believe that she was special-some part of her wanted to believe Harry was special, too-but here was Regulus trampling all over her hope with huge, muddy boots.

Everybody else spent the following morning putting up Christmas decorations. Circe could not remember Sirius ever being in such a good mood; he was actually singing carols, apparently delighted that he was to finally have company over Christmas. She could hear his voice echoing up through the floor in the cold drawing room where she was sitting alone, watching the sky growing whiter outside the windows, threatening snow, all the time feeling a savage pleasure that she was giving the others the opportunity to keep talking about her, as they were bound to be doing. When she heard her mother calling her name up the stairs around lunchtime, Circe retreated further upstairs and ignored her.

But Sirius' delight at having the house full again, and especially at having Circe and Harry back, was infectious. He was no longer their sullen host of the summer; now he seemed determined that everyone should enjoy themselves as much, if not more than they would have done at Hogwarts, and he worked tirelessly in the run-up to Christmas Day, cleaning and decorating with their help, so that by the time they all went to bed on Christmas Eve Grimmauld Place was barely recognisable.

Circe awoke on Christmas morning to find a stack of presents at the foot of her bed, but tossed them aside and set course for the kitchen, where her mother would surely be making breakfast. She had just descended onto the second landing when, with a loud crack, Fred and George Apparated before her.

"Merry Christmas, Black," said George with a lopsided wink. "Don't go downstairs for a bit."

"Why not?"

"Dear old Mum's crying again," said Fred heavily. "Percy sent back his Christmas jumper."

"Without a note. Hasn't asked how Dad is or anything."

"We tried to comfort her."

"Didn't work," said George. "So Lupin took over. Best let him cheer her up before you go down for breakfast, I reckon."

Circe pushed past them both, but Fred grabbed the hood of her dressing gown and yanked her backwards.

He said, "I didn't see a present from you in my stocking."

"Better keep looking, then." She shrugged.

Mrs Weasley was the only person in the basement when they arrived there. She was standing at the stove and sounded as though she had a bad head cold as she wished them "Merry Christmas", and they all averted their eyes.

"So, is this Kreacher's bedroom?"

Ron, Hermione and Harry had come downstairs. They'd strolled over to the dingy door in the corner opposite the pantry, where Kreacher would sleep. Circe had never seen it open.

Ron rapped on the door with his knuckles but there was no reply.

"He must be sneaking around upstairs," he said, and without further ado pulled open the door. "Ugh!"

Most of the cupboard was taken up by an old-fashioned boiler, but in the foot of space underneath the pipes Kreacher had made himself a nest. A jumble of assorted rags and blankets were piled on the floor and the small dent in the middle of it showed where Kreacher curled up every night. Here and there among the material were stale bread crusts and mouldy bits of cheese. In a far corner glinted small objects and coins that'd been saved, magpie-like, from Sirius' purge of the house, including silver-framed family photographs.

"I think I'll just leave his present here," said Hermione, laying a package neatly in the middle of the rags and blankets. "He'll find it later."

"Come to think of it." Sirius emerged from the pantry carrying a large turkey as they closed the cupboard door. "Has anyone actually seen Kreacher lately?"

"I haven't seen him since the night we came back here," said Harry. "You were ordering him out of the kitchen."

"You know, I think that's the last time I saw him, too ... he must be hiding upstairs somewhere."

"He couldn't have left, could he?" said Harry. "I mean, maybe he thought you meant get out of the house?"

Circe announced, "House-elves can't leave unless they're given clothes. They're tied to their family's house."

Harry turned to her in surprise; he hadn't seen her as he walked in. She was resting the small of her back against the kitchen table, wrapped up in a fluffy white dressing gown and looking much prettier now that she wasn't scowling.

He subtly brushed his messy hair to the side.

Sirius looked slightly disconcerted for a moment, then said, "I'll look for him later, I expect I'll find him upstairs crying his eyes out over my mother's old bloomers or something. Of course, he might have crawled into the airing cupboard and died ... but I mustn't get my hopes up."

Fred, George and Ron laughed; Hermione, however, looked reproachful.

Once they had eaten their Christmas lunch, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione were planning to pay Mr Weasley another visit, escorted by Sara and Lupin. Sara did not take this decision lightly: her dislike of leaving Circe at Grimmauld Place alone was battling with her loyalty to the Order. It was only when Sirius offered to keep Circe and Enyo occupied with a round of board games that Sara left the house with grace.

The first floor of the house looked pleasantly festive: the crystal orbs that illuminated each room had been coloured red and gold to become gigantic, glowing Christmas baubles; holly hung around every doorway; and a shining white Christmas tree covered in magical snow and icicles glittered in the corner of the living room, topped with a gleaming gold star.

"Have you started revising for O.W.Ls?" asked Enyo. She spoke loudly over the sound of Sirius' snoring, who'd fallen asleep on the couch with his paper crown half-covering his face.

"Not really," said Circe airily. "I have a bit of a photographic memory, anyway."

Enyo did not seem entirely satisfied with her cousin's answer, but didn't push the subject any further.

"Where's your father?" Circe said, noting Regulus' absence.

"Out," Enyo muttered, with a snap in her voice like a mousetrap. "He doesn't like Christmas. Or maybe he just doesn't like spending it around me."

Of course, thought Circe. Christmas had been around the time Leda died. Regulus usually disappeared before dawn and returned, stinking of booze, at twilight. Nobody knew where he went all day, only that he liked to be there alone.

Enyo seemed to deflate. "I only wish he understood I miss her as much as he does."

Behind them, Sirius let out a noise somewhere between a cough and a snore. He jerked awake and muttered something under his breath about getting himself a cup of tea.

"Fathers aren't all that understanding-it's not just yours," said Circe imploringly. "Regulus hates talking about anything to do with his feelings, anyway."

"So, therefore, I shouldn't talk about mine?"

"You could talk to me."

"You knew her even less than I did."

"I can just listen."

"It's embarrassing to say," said Enyo, fiddling with the ends of her white hair, "that I hate her and miss her at the same time."

If only Enyo knew that she was speaking to someone who'd battled with loving and hating her parents her whole life, she might have felt less anxious.

"-how could she have cared for me if she killed herself? I was such a disappointment she couldn't live-"

"How do you know it had anything to do with you?"

"How couldn't it?"

Circe could only come to one conclusion: "Did Regulus say this?"

"Draco."

Of course. "Well, what would he know?"

"There was a note," said Enyo suddenly, sounding breathless.

It had been Leda herself that dealt the final blow. As Enyo explained, she'd penned a letter to her sister, Katherine, detailing all of her guilt and shame that'd arisen after Enyo's birth. It was supposed to have been a boy.

The smile faded slowly from Circe's face. For a few moments she gazed intently at Enyo, then she said, "Why did it matter so much, though?"

"She was told to bear only sons."

"Told?" repeated Circe, looking faintly unsettled. "By who? Grandmother?"

But just then a head poked round the door and a voice called, "Enyo, kid, a letter's arrived for you."

Sirius entered the room wearing a tinsel wreath in his hair. Enyo looked sheepish, gesturing uselessly at the abandoned game of scrabble between them.

"Actually, we were just-"

But Sirius was smiling expectantly, and her feeble mutter of "going to finish this" trailed away into nothingness. Enyo looked at Circe helplessly, then got up to see what all the fuss was.

"Hope you don't mind, there was no letter," Sirius informed Circe in a low voice. "I just needed to grab a moment with you alone."

Circe's face paled. The moment he deposited himself in the closest armchair, Sirius pulled a fresh copy of the Prophet towards him, seized a quill and started filling in the Christmas crossword.

"You know more about Aunt Leda, don't you?" said Circe accusingly. "More than Enyo, anyway."

"It would be hard to know less than that girl does about her mother."

"Go on, then."

At this, Sirius jumped as though a bullet had narrowly missed him.

"Do you think it pleases me to know?"

"I do."

Sirius looked as though he would rather be anywhere in the world but here. A dull pink flush was creeping up his face and he was not making eye contact.

"All of this, y'know"-Circe gestured around them-"happened because Leda didn't do her job. Who gave it to her?"

He did not look at her, but stared at his own feet, the colour deepening in his face all the while. "You have to understand, Circe, that this is larger than just Leda," he uttered.

She looked rather startled but said, "I guessed."

"I'm going to tell you something now. It won't be easy for you to understand, but you must hear it."

"What?"

Sirius took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. "Since the days of Merlin, a precious few in the wizarding line have been gifted with prophetic dreams. And just as others foresaw evil, Regulus foresaw the end of the world of magic. He saw absolute darkness-and whatever dwelled within would destroy us all."

Circe gaped at her father as he unburdened himself of the secret he'd carried for so long.

"Whenever it came, all of wizardkind would have to stand against it. And if we are to survive, there must be one strong enough to unite light and dark against evil. A child, born of the purest blood, would save us all. The prince that was promised."

Enyo. Circe could not remember ever feeling sorrier for anyone.

"It was just a dream, though," she said. "He's not a seer."

"I don't know," said Sirius, very faintly, still looking anywhere but at his daughter. "It was strong enough to turn him against the Death Eaters. And Leda died for it," he added.

"So who is it?" Circe went on. "I know you know. I-there'll be a time when I have to know, too."

Sirius rubbed his stubbly face; he did not seem to want to speak, or perhaps he was not able to. But, eventually, he murmured, "My brother, in his pride, thought he could save the world."

He got up and walked away, back into the hallway, talking to himself into madness. Circe scoffed but struggled to be angry with her father. She did not think she'd ever found anything more mortifying in her life.

After ten minutes, there was a loud ruckus by the front door. Circe poked her head out and saw as the entire Weasley family, plus Harry and Hermione, came inside, all looking very happy, with Mr. Weasley walking proudly in their midst dressed in a pair of striped pyjamas covered by a mackintosh.

"Cured! Completely cured!"

She tried to pass the Weasleys without comment, edging along the wall in a break for the stairs, but Sara insisted that everybody celebrate Mr. Weasley's clean bill of health with supper.

The meal should have been a cheerful one with Mr. Weasley back amongst them; Circe could tell Sirius was trying to make it so, yet when her godfather was not forcing himself to laugh loudly at Fred and George's jokes or offering everyone more food, his face fell back into a moody, brooding expression. She was separated from him by Mad-Eye and Regulus, who had snuck back into the house at some point; she wanted to talk to Sirius, to tell him that she understood their predicament, that she was taking it seriously, that she did not think Enyo some freak of nature for being borne out of a dream, but had no opportunity to do so, and wondered occasionally, eyeing the ugly look on Sirius' face, whether she would have dared to.

Instead, she found herself cornered by Harry as she made her way upstairs. The floorboards creaked underfoot as they padded up to the third landing, talking under their breaths.

Once Circe started, she couldn't stop. She launched into a recount of almost everything Sirius told her some hours ago; her chest was rapidly rising and falling, and her hands were animating every word-but she could do nothing about it. Now that everything had tumbled out of its shell, it couldn't be stuffed back in. And it wasn't that she trusted Harry, either, she just knew he would be the only one to understand the weight of a dream.

His expression warped itself into something new with each revelation: confused, angered, worried, then back to confusion. And when Circe finally finished, gulping down air, he'd bitten on his thumbnail so severely that it started to bleed.

"I don't understand," was all he could say.

"It was never meant to be me. They all-everybody knew."

When Circe cried her whole face went to pieces. She was crying. He comforted her, patting her clumsily on the back, but it didn't seem to help.

"You can fight this, y'know," Harry said. "You don't have to let it happen."

She turned to look at him with a screwed face. "By doing what? Go to war with them? That's your thing, not mine."

He wordlessly handed her a Galleon (Circe was disappointed when she saw it at first, convinced that he was actually giving her gold, which she had plenty of).

"You see the numerals around the edge of the coins?" Harry said, instructing her to look. The coin gleamed fat and yellow in the light from the torches. "On real Galleons that's just a serial number. On these fake coins, though, the numbers will change to reflect the time and date of our next meeting."

"Meeting?"

"Dumbledore's Army-it's my group."

A blank silence greeted his words.

"Well, I thought it was a good idea," he said uncertainly, "to go over what Umbridge isn't teaching us. But ... if you don't want to ..."

But Circe was now staring at him with something close to wonder. "You know what these remind me of? The Dark Mark. Voldemort touches one of them, and all their scars burn."

"Suppose so." Harry grinned lopsidedly. "So ... will you come?"

She shuffled around on the spot before peering up at him with tear-stained eyes. I'll be there, she said, and it felt shockingly comforting, those words.

I'll be there.