Archive of Our Own

1883

Ominis no longer liked it when Marvolo came with him to Aunt Noctua, but he didn’t want to grumble about it after Aunt Noctua told him that Marvolo’s face looked just a little less unhappy when he was sitting at her table. His words were as mean as they were at home, but Ominis knew that if there was one person who would not lie to him, it was Aunt Noctua, and it wasn’t like he could tell Marvolo to not come anyway.

“It’s a Christmas gift,” Aunt Noctua said as Ominis tried to figure out what the fluffy and soft thing in his hands was.

“We don’t celebrate Christmas,” Marvolo scowled. Ominis’s mouth curled down as he stubbornly continued pawing at his gift. He was too distracted enjoying the unfamiliar and very nice texture to pay enough attention to its shape to find out what it actually was. “It’s a Muggle holiday.”

“Marvolo, don’t be ridiculous.” Aunt Noctua sighed with exasperation, hugging Ominis to her side protectively. “They celebrate it in Hogwarts too.”

“Which is why I came home for the break. Even though I could have practiced flying instead of having to deal with father.” There was the familiar sound of Marvolo spitting somewhere that made Ominis flinch and tighten his fingers around Aunt Noctua’s gift. “He gambled away Gormlaith Gaunt’s diary! ‘Because the only proof we need of who we are is our name and the blood in our veins, who cares about those knickknacks?’” Ominis giggled at the slimy, unflatteringly exaggerated yet still recognizable imitation of their father’s voice, thrilled by Marvolo’s daring, even if he was brave enough to mock their father only behind his back. “If he sells Salazar Slytherin’s locket or the Peverell ring for another bottle of gourmet brandy, I’ll kill him.”

Aunt Noctua didn’t say anything. Ominis finally found a hole, putting his fingers in and looking around. It felt even fluffier and softer inside.

“It’s a sock!” he declared proudly.

Aunt Noctua ruffled his hair playfully. “Do you like it? If you become famous enough, one day these socks may be worth even more than any of Gormlaith Gaunt’s belongings – though please do grow up to be a much better person than that cruel, vile woman was.”

“How dare you—” Marvolo began, but he stopped when Aunt Noctua stood up, leaving Ominis alone in the armchair. Ominis clutched the socks to his chest, determined to struggle if Marvolo wanted to tear them out of his hands.

“I got you something too. Not for Christmas,” Aunt Noctua added quickly. “But to celebrate that you have been chosen as the new beater of the Slytherin Quidditch team! These gloves make gripping the wood of your bat and broom more secure. Or so I’ve been told. Tell me if it really is better after you try it out at the next match!”

Ominis began to take his socks off to do something; it felt like the silence was crawling across his face like a bug. His socks were thin and there was a small hole around his heel on his left foot.

“Phineas himself said you were quite impressive—” Aunt Noctua tried.

“That obnoxious fool hates Quidditch and wouldn’t recognize a well-executed swing at a bludger if it hit him in his face,” Marvolo sneered. Ominis began to tug his new socks on.

“Well, I am proud of you,” Aunt Noctua said earnestly. Marvolo didn’t say anything. The socks hugged Ominis’s feet like they were cozily bundled into a very warm blanket: it felt so nice he wriggled his feet happily. “Quidditch may not be something many Gaunts have excelled at before, but that just makes it even better that you are now part of the team: we should change others’ perception of us as a family satisfied with only clinging to a legacy of nine centuries of hateful prejudice instead of wanting to achieve anything new ourselves.”

“Our legacy is—”

“I know what you believe,” Aunt Noctua interrupted Marvolo, her kind voice suddenly taking on a steely tone that reminded Ominis of their father’s voice, making his feet tense against the edge of the armchair. “I barely knew anything about the world when I was your age either, you still have so much to learn. Ambition to do something more than just be a Gaunt is a good start. Try the gloves on, Marvolo. I hope they are comfortable.”

“I don’t want them.”

Aunt Noctua sighed, then Ominis was gently nudged to the left to give her enough space to sit back into the armchair.

“I like the socks!” Ominis beamed. “And if Marvolo doesn’t want the gloves, I’ll take them too.”

“Stupid brat, they are too big for you!” Marvolo protested, but Aunt Noctua was already placing the gloves into Ominis’s hands. They were made of a smooth leather, and the sensation wasn’t at all as nice as the socks, but they were warm too – there was no object in Aunt Noctua’s house that had a cold surface or texture, Ominis thought happily.

“Help me with it, aunt,” Ominis demanded.

Aunt Noctua laughed fondly, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “What a little lord! Give me your hands.” She put the gloves on, but they were, as Marvolo said, too big for him, and did not hug his hands comfortably at all.

Then Aunt Noctua asked if he would like to bake an apple pie, helping him remove the gloves when Ominis nodded eagerly. He was always happy to help Aunt Noctua bake, basking in all the different textures and scents. He ate so many apple slices Aunt Noctua had to remind him that there will be no space left in his stomach for the pie if he eats too much now.

Marvolo never helped anymore. Ominis remembered when he used to, when he wiped the flour off Ominis’s nose roughly but not painfully, laughed when Ominis lied right into Aunt Noctua’s face about how they did not eat any of the chocolate pastilles, how old was Ominis the last time he heard Marvolo laugh instead of sneer and scoff and sometimes snort? But at least today he didn’t say anything mean about how Aunt Noctua should use spells instead of doing everything with her hands like the filthy Muggles, silently sitting in the armchair instead.

“Aunt Noctua, you have to take me with you into the Scriptorium when you finally find the entrance,” Marvolo said after the pie was done.

“Do I?” Aunt Noctua asked dryly.

“Someone who thinks like you should not be allowed to get their hands on Salazar Slytherin’s possessions.”

“That certainly makes me want to invite you,” Aunt Noctua said coldly. Her voice softened when she turned to Ominis, encouraging him to take the first bite of the pie. “And it could be dangerous, I don’t want to risk a child getting hurt.”

“I’m not a child!”

“You haven’t even taken your O.W.L.s yet, Marvolo.”

“Don’t go there if it could be dangerous!” The apple pie suddenly didn’t taste delicious when Ominis thought about Aunt Noctua getting hurt. Aunt Noctua laughed softly and poured tea for him.

He forgot about his worry with a stomach full of apple pie and warm tea, and then it was time to go. Aunt Noctua told them to be careful flying home so they won’t be seen by Muggles, and Marvolo sneered that he didn’t give a shit and it was a moonless night anyway.

“Happy Christmas, boys!” Aunt Noctua shouted when Marvolo was already in the air.

“If you say it back, I’ll push you off the broom,” Marvolo threatened. Ominis considered the situation, tightening his arms around Marvolo’s waist, murmured an ‘I don’t give a shit’ that made Marvolo snort with more amusement than Ominis remembered hearing him show in years, and opened his mouth to shout as loudly as he could as he felt the wind rush against his cheeks when Marvolo began to soar up into the sky. “Happy Christmas, Aunt Noctua!”

1916

Ominis shuddered, squirming away with a long-suffering grimace and flopping onto his back, his arms tensing to protect himself from another attack.

“Darling,” Sebastian laughed with mirthful confusion.

Ominis sighed in relief. “It’s you.”

“Who else were you expecting in our bed?”

Ominis tickled Sebastian’s sides in retaliation for the teasing, making him laugh helplessly. He wrapped his arms around Sebastian after he let up the tickling, and smiled into Sebastian’s cold hair as Sebastian’s body relaxed on top of him.

“I thought it was the puffskein,” Ominis muttered, reaching up to his ear and finding it wet with Sebastian’s saliva. “If she wakes me up one more time with putting her tongue into my ear I’m writing a formal letter of apology to Duncan Hobhouse for making fun of him in Hogwarts for being afraid of them.”

Sebastian snorted, then pressed a little peck to his ear. The warmth spreading through Ominis’s chest tugged his lips into a fond smile, which broke into an exasperated laugh when Sebastian licked his ear again. “I warned you that a puffskein could be an annoying pet.”

“Merope begged for one—”

“She asked one time ‘Uncle Ominis, wouldn’t it be great if we had a puffskein?’, and you all but pushed everyone out of your way in Magical Menagerie to buy her one.” Sebastian rubbed his cold cheek against Ominis’s face, making him groan in both happiness and displeasure.

“You’re cold.”

“It’s cold outside,” Sebastian pouted sorrowfully. “Will you warm me up?”

Ominis nodded enthusiastically, holding Sebastian’s face and beginning to rub little circles onto his skin the way he would put face cream onto his own cheeks. Sebastian laughed, then dove in for a kiss, putting his tongue into Ominis’s mouth without any finesse but a lot of eagerness.

“Merlin, Sebastian.” Ominis broke the clumsy attempt at a kiss with a snort. “You’re as elegant as the puffskein.”

Sebastian tried again, coaxing Ominis’s mouth open slowly and sensually, moving his tongue in a very unpuffskeinlike way in Ominis’s mouth. Ominis sighed into the kiss eagerly when Sebastian shifted on top of him, moving his hands to Sebastian’s shoulders, clinging onto him as—

“Uncle, are you still awake?”

Sebastian quickly rolled off of him, laughing awkwardly as Ominis sat up, tugging on his pajama shirt to straighten it out. “Hey bunny, did you have a nightmare?”

“Uncle Sebastian, good evening!” Merope chirped, climbing onto the bed between them. Ominis could now hear the low humming sound indicating the presence of the puffskein.

“Good evening, Merope and Puffity,” Sebastian said, gasping in playfully overexaggerated horror at the puffskein licking him. Merope cooed, and the humming sound intensified.

“Morfin stayed in Hogwarts during the winter break last year, why is he coming home now? I don’t want him to ruin our Christmas.”

Sebastian sighed. “If you could give him a second chance to prove—”

“Why should I? Aunt Anne said I don’t have to forgive him just because he is my brother, and he isn’t even sorry about anything, he will be as awful as he has always been.”

“You haven’t met him since summer, Merope, how can you be so sure he hasn’t changed?”

“Uncle Ominis said he doesn’t want him to come home either!”

“You said that?” Sebastian sounded upset, which made Ominis grit his teeth with frustration.

“Why should I pretend to look forward to having to deal with him during Christmas just because he is my nephew?” Ominis grabbed the puffskein trying to climb onto his lap and pushed her towards Merope, who took her from him, but not before she tried to curl her long tongue around his wrist like a slimy manacle. Merope began to pet her to make her stay still, the humming starting up again. At least somebody was content.

Sebastian laughed mirthlessly. “I see I’m outnumbered.”

Yet, like it happened so often, in the end Sebastian got what he wanted despite everyone’s protests, leaving Ominis holding Merope’s hand on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on the next day.

Maybe Morfin will stay in Hogwarts despite Sebastian’s invitation, Ominis mused hopefully as he listened to the families reuniting around him, bittersweet nostalgia welling up in his heart as he caught fragments of conversations about professors and classes and too much homework for Christmas and this year we will win the Quidditch Cup for sure. The nostalgia turned bitter with nothing sweet left in it when he heard that, but he couldn’t dwell on it as Sebastian suddenly shouted ‘Morfin, oi, we are here!’ next to him.

Ominis’s wand picked up a presence melting out of the crowd, but even as it came closer and then stopped – standing a bit closer to Sebastian than to Ominis and Merope, he noted –, it still felt as shaky and uncertain as the strangers around him, not able to take on a solid shape like Sebastian and Merope.

“Don’t you dare shout my name where other students can hear it ever again, you worthless half-blood.”

Ominis felt a muscle twitch in his face as Merope’s hand squeezed his hand.

Sebastian clapped his hands together. “Now that we are finally all here, let’s go buy a Christmas tree.”

“I’m not celebrating Christmas like the fucking Muggles,” Morfin sneered.

“I did write in my last letter that we will celebrate Christmas, Morfin,” Sebastian said calmly. “But if you are tired after the long journey from Hogwarts, we can go home first—”

“My home is in Little Hangleton.”

“Then spend Christmas in Little Hangleton,” Ominis snapped. “Hop onto the first Muggle train to Great Hangleton, walk home and sit in that empty shack alone waiting for your father to break out of Azkaban somehow and come back to you, we certainly won’t—”

“Ominis,” Sebastian said.

“We certainly won’t miss you,” Merope helped Ominis out.

But yet again Sebastian was the victorious one, Ominis thought as he wrapped his scarf snugger around his neck after getting tired of the cold nipping at his skin while he waited for Sebastian and Merope to find the plumpest and greenest Christmas tree. Ominis could not offer any advice as the trees looked the same to his wand, and Morfin didn’t offer his help either, standing next to his uncle in sullen silence instead. Ominis was petty enough that he felt a bit cheered up by the thought that at least Morfin also wasn’t having fun.

“Are you cold?” Ominis asked when he heard Morfin’s teeth begin to violently chatter for the third time.

“No,” Morfin scowled, then added for good measure: “Fuck off.”

“I can transfigure something in my bag into a scarf for you until we get home.” If they had no choice but to spend Christmas together, Ominis figured he should at least try to offer a show of goodwill to his nephew no matter how much he didn’t deserve it.

“Like I would wear anything you give me, you pathetic scumsucker. I hope next time you grovel in front of the Muggle Minister you offend those worms enough that they will kill you.”

Ominis took a deep breath, and held it for a while.

It didn’t help.

“I wonder if your father is feeling cold enough he would be willing to accept a scarf from his blood-traitor little brother; I heard it can get quite cold in Azkaban.”

Morfin gripped the lapels of his coat and pushed him against the nearest tree, making him lose his balance and fall into the branches, the wand falling out of his hand. For a few moments his vision was completely empty. When he flexed his fingers after he regained his balance and his wand jumped back into his hand, he saw that Sebastian was now next to him and Morfin’s presence was frozen in an unnaturally motionless shape.

He felt brisk hands on his coat and in his hair, brushing away the pine needles that fell onto him.

“Are you alright, uncle?” Merope asked.

“Of course, bunny,” Ominis reassured her with a soft smile, tilting his head into Sebastian’s touch, who was now unsubtly petting him under the pretense of picking the last needles out of his hair in the middle of Diagon Alley’s Christmas tree market.

“Great!” Merope chirped, grabbing Ominis’s hand. “We found the most perfect tree, let’s bring it home!”

“Let me unfreeze your brother first,” Sebastian protested with a laugh.

“I’m sure he will figure out a way to unfreeze himself somehow,” Merope said.

“He does always tell us that he doesn’t need our help with anything,” Ominis added.

“You fucking bastard!” Morfin roared. “Incen—”

“Silencio!” It was fortunate Ominis had the time to cast the spell quickly before Morfin could finish his, who was saying the incantation more slowly to gather enough power into his spell.

The young woman selling the trees greeted him with an excited and flustered ‘Lord Gaunt, good day!’.

“Mr. Gaunt is enough,” Ominis said affably.

“What a joy to meet you in person!” the witch gushed. “Your beard is even thicker than it looked in the Daily Prophet. It’s so short though, have you considered letting it grow longer? Salazar Slytherin had a long beard too, I’m sure you could also grow a splendid long beard.”

“Maybe I’ll give it a try in a decade or two.”

“When you become the Minister for Magic, perhaps?”

Ominis tried to keep the shock off his face, twisting it into a becomingly flattered smile. He had heard this one a few times before, but always from someone in the Ministry who wanted to use him to climb higher. It was a bit startling to hear it from a stranger with no ulterior motives behind the praise, someone who had to mean it earnestly. Some who supported Muggles hated him simply for being a Gaunt, others hated him for wanting the Statute of Secrecy to remain, not allowing them to legally use their magic to help the Muggles suffering in their war. Many pure-blood fanatics hated him for being a blood-traitor who still used the fame and respect his family name conveyed to cozy up to the Minister, and the worst of them hated him because they thought it would be easier to prey on Muggles in the chaos of their war if they could no longer be punished for using magic in front of them. Sometimes it felt like he could not win in anyone’s eyes, so stumbling into such genuine admiration was always a welcome surprise.

The witch didn’t seem to be bothered by not getting an answer. “Is your partner forbidding you from growing out your beard? My brother’s wife also doesn’t let him grow a long beard, claiming that it would make him look much older.”

“Oh no, I’d love it if he had a longer beard!” Sebastian chimed in. “I have also always admired Salazar Slytherin’s long beard.” He laughed cheekily at the flat look Ominis gave him. “But we don’t want to hold up the line, and we are all very eager to finally have our beautiful tree placed in our home.”

“Of course, of course! The tree is free, Mr. Gaunt, you have done so much for wizardkind, it is really the least—”

“That’s quite kind of you, but we’ll pay for it like everyone else,” Ominis insisted with a cordial smile, putting into it all the seasonal joy he could muster, or at least a hopefully dazzling enough illusion of it. “Have a happy Christmas!”

***

“I’m coming too,” Morfin declared the next morning. “But only if we can visit Knockturn Alley later to buy something actually cool, like Sebastian promised in his last letter.”

“Sebastian—” Ominis began.

“Nothing dangerous, dear. And who knows, maybe the fair in the Ministry will have so many wonderful ornaments we won’t even need to visit Knockturn Alley after. Isn’t that right, pal?”

“If you call me pal ever again I’ll kill you even if I have to spend the rest of my life in Azkaban,” Morfin snapped, but he made a sound before his sneering threat that sounded like the small, quick snorts Marvolo used to make sometimes when he found something funny or at least ridiculous enough that he was amused by it. It was the first time Ominis heard it from Morfin.

“Morfin,” Ominis said as he kneeled down in front of Merope to make sure her coat was all buttoned up, gently pushing the knitted hat down to cover her ears. “I’ve dealt with a lot of shit you have said to us with only a gritted teeth and perhaps a few snide words here and there, but you know that my career is very important to me, it was very hard to get where I am now. Many high-ranking members of the Ministry and the Minister himself will be at the fair. If you are considering saying or doing anything that might embarrass me in front of them, like last time when you asked at the banquet whether I actually don’t want the war to end because my position is only important because it is affecting our world too and after the war is over once again nobody will give a shit about the Muggle Liaison Office, please think about the locket and the ring in my Gringotts vault before you act.”

Ominis heard the sound of Morfin crudely spitting somewhere. He closed his eyes, patted the top of Merope’s head, which made her giggle, and stood up, turning towards Sebastian with a look showing him how fucking exhausted he already was with Morfin on the second day of the brat staying with them. Sebastian pressed a kiss to Ominis’s forehead like that solved anything before tugging down his hat to cover his forehead. It did not solve anything, but it did feel nice at least, making Ominis’s mouth twitch into a small smile.

The Christmas Ornament Charity Fair was very sparkly and colorful, Merope informed him enthusiastically as she dragged him to the table where Poppy was. The music had lots and lots of bells and a very determined piccolo. The complimentary dragon-shaped gingerbread Poppy pressed into his hand tasted very sweet.

“I’m donating ten galleons,” Merope declared proudly, tugging on the sleeve of Ominis’s shirt. “Uncle, give me ten galleons.” Ominis shoved the rest of his gingerbread into his mouth quickly and took his wallet out to give her ten galleons. “You can buy ten cows with it for your dragons, Aunt Poppy.”

“You can’t buy a cow for one galleon, stupid,” Morfin scowled.

“Why, how much is a cow?” Merope asked, sounding both annoyed and genuinely curious.

“I don’t know,” Morfin admitted. “But I’m sure it’s not one galleon.”

“I’m donating Morfin too,” Merope snapped. “You can feed him to a Hungarian Horntail, Aunt Poppy.”

“You would sell your brother as dragon food, Merope?” Sebastian asked, sounding amused.

“I’m giving him to the dragon sanctuary for free,” Merope corrected him primly.

“That’s even worse,” Ominis snorted. “At least get some money out of letting a dragon eat him. Don’t worry, Morfin, I have no doubt the Hungarian Horntail will be able to smell the purity of your blood and won’t actually eat you.”

“Why don’t you two look at the ornaments and choose one or two for our tree? If you end up buying one of each of the ten dragons, that’s fine too, they all look so lovely I couldn’t choose only a few either!” Sebastian said quickly before Morfin could say anything back, wrapping an arm around Ominis’s waist and pulling him against his side. He lowered his voice, speaking into Ominis’s ear quietly: “Don’t antagonize your nephew.”

Ominis scoffed. Sebastian squeezed his waist expectantly, like he wasn’t going to release him until Ominis offered him something more. He absolutely refused to apologize, but he did nod reluctantly with an eye roll. It was enough for Sebastian, who patted his waist and pressed a kiss to his cheek, holding him a little less tight but not letting him go.

“Lord Gaunt,” a mocking voice behind them said. “And Mr. Gaunt, clinging onto you as ever, I see.”

“Mr. Potter,” Ominis greeted coldly but as politely as he was capable of. “Enjoying the fair?”

“I was expecting you to be sitting at the table of the Muggle Liaison Office, but I suppose it was a wise decision to choose someone less… controversial if you want to sell more than a few ornaments.”

Sebastian tightened his fingers around Ominis’s waist. Ominis gave Henry Potter his fakest smile, wanting to make his annoyance clear but refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing Ominis’s anger.

“It didn’t fit into my timetable, I’m afraid. Who knows when Minister Evermonde will call me into his office for an emergency discussion – though of course that’s not something you have to worry about, Mr. Potter –, and I want to spend some time with my family during Christmas too. Buy one of our zeppelin ornaments for little Fleamont, I’m sure he would like it. I’m on your side, Mr. Potter, we both care about the Muggles’—”

“On my side?” Potter exclaimed bitterly. “You opportunistic bootlicker politician, you have spent every day since the beginning of the war fighting for the opposite of what should be done with your faithful Mr. Gaunt writing article after article slandering our belief that we should be allowed to help Muggles—”

“I have never slandered anyone,” Sebastian interrupted Potter. “If factual reporting about things said and done by those who support the sudden overthrowing of the Statute of Secrecy in a time more chaotic and devastating than ever before in Muggle history is considered slander, maybe you should rethink how much common sense is in your—”

“Gentlemen, please, let’s not be at each other’s throats during Christmas. Mr. Potter, your son was looking for you near Sacharissa Tugwood’s table.”

Potter left with a curt goodbye, and was swiftly replaced by Poppy, who didn’t sound to be in a much better mood.

“What even is she doing here? It is bad enough that there are four tables for Quidditch teams and only one for St. Mungo’s, an institution that actually helps people instead of just entertaining them, but beauty potions? What next, will we have a table for Sugarplum’s Sweets Shop next year? At least they could sell some sweets fitting for the season.”

“Miss Tugwood has prepared for the season as well!” Archer Evermonde said jovially. “She is selling beard oil that smells just like Christmas, I bought one for my son who is a bit of a dandy, but it was a two for the price of one deal. Ominis, do you want the other one?”

Poppy spluttered in offended disbelief. Ominis wanted to politely reject Evermonde’s offer to not enrage Poppy further – he agreed with her too, even if he knew her indignity was fueled mostly by her love for Anne and Sacharissa Tugwood telling the prefects about Poppy hiding a niffler in the Hufflepuff dormitory in her third year –, but he was also quite curious about the beard oil.

“Augh, just take it! I have never seen such longing on your face before,” Poppy said with exasperation, but there was just enough amusement in her voice Ominis felt he was allowed to reach out with a palm turned up, letting Evermonde drop a small vial into it.

“I hope I won’t have to bother you during Christmas like I did last year, Ominis, you have worked so hard all year that nobody deserves a rest more than you,” Evermonde said earnestly. “But who was expecting a new Muggle Prime Minister so suddenly?” Ominis was, actually: so many of the Muggles were discontent with Asquith that it was only shocking he lasted this long. “Mr. Lloyd George seems promising, though, doesn’t he?”

“He does seem more determined than Mr. Asquith. Let us hope that the war will be over much sooner than the more pessimistic voices fear. If you need me for anything, I’m, as always, here. Happy Christmas, Minister Evermonde!”

***

“I’m fine now,” Sebastian murmured as he gently wiped Ominis’s tears away with his thumb. Ominis banged his fists against Sebastian’s naked chest in frustration, more tears spilling down his face.

“We still need to give you the dittany potion.” Merope sounded much more confident now that Sebastian was no longer dying on the floor a few steps from their Christmas tree. “Uncle, if you sit onto the couch, I can apply it to your shoulder.”

Sebastian laughed, his thumb still pressed to the skin under Ominis’s eye. “Maybe I would look more dashing with a scar.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ominis grit out. If Sebastian wanted to make a joke to cheer him up, he had failed spectacularly, his words only making Ominis even angrier. The thought of being reminded of his nephew almost killing the love of his life every time he felt the scar under his fingers or lips made his stomach churn with misery. “Sit onto the couch.”

Sebastian obeyed. Ominis rubbed his palm against his sticky face before picking Sebastian’s clothes up from the floor, grimacing at the tacky feeling of the blood soaked into them. Casting Vulnera Sanentur three times drained him so much he didn’t have any strength left to cast even a simple charm to clean the clothes, he realized as he adjusted the bundle in his arms. The stench of blood hit his nose. It smelled like Marvolo’s blood after their father talked with him about the last Quidditch match Marvolo had ever played in, the game Slytherin lost after Marvolo had spent weeks taunting the Gryffindor team’s Muggle-born members about how he will destroy them on the pitch. It also smelled like the blood of the Muggle soldiers in the camp Ominis and Sebastian had visited with Evermonde a few months ago.

“He didn’t understand it was this dangerous,” Sebastian said, his voice raising in volume after he thanked Merope with a soft murmur. “He looks down on Muggles so much in part because he thinks they are weak and he believes he could easily defeat any of them. I wanted to show him that they have their own weapons that make them much more dangerous than he and many others who hate Muggles believe they are.”

“But if you understand how dangerous a rifle is, why did you let him shoot you with it?”

“I levitated a winter squash and told him to hit it. He shot at it three times, failed to hit it, then decided to turn it on me because I was closer and a bigger target, I suppose. It hit me so quickly I didn’t have the time to counter it with magic. But he didn’t want to actually kill me.”

“No, of course not,” Ominis sneered, fighting down the urge to throw the heap of bloody clothes into Sebastian’s face. “What a preposterous idea that someone could be killed by their nephew!”

Sebastian didn’t say anything. Ominis didn’t have the stomach to stay in the room. He went into the bathroom and dumped the bloodied clothes into the bathtub just to do something, then sat down onto the edge of the tub. The scent of blood tickled his nose unpleasantly. He gagged, but he didn’t vomit.

Morfin came back later – it felt like hours and yet also too soon –, and he didn’t say anything when Ominis opened the door.

“Good afternoon, Morfin,” Sebastian said behind Ominis, sounding much less cheerful than he usually did but still way too calm considering the circumstances. “Come in, I imagine it must have been unpleasant to fly back in such cold weather, but I certainly won’t apologize for not being able to apparate you back with me, hah!”

Morfin took a step forward. Ominis raised his hand, his palm pressed against Morfin’s chest; the coarse fabric of his coat under his palm felt icy. Morfin had brought the coat from Little Hangleton, refusing Sebastian’s offer of buying him a warmer coat. Morfin made a quiet gasp of surprise, but didn’t try to step away or push against the hand on his chest.

“You should apologize, though. I’m not letting you in otherwise. Show some fucking remorse for once in your miserable life, Morfin.”

“For what? He’s alive,” Morfin sneered, grabbing Ominis’s wrist and tearing his hand away from his chest before squeezing the wrist caught in the circle of his cold fingers. He was strong; perhaps just as strong as Marvolo had been when he curled his bleeding fingers roughly around Ominis’s wrist and pushed his hand away from his face, when he was the same age his son now was and Ominis wasn’t even old enough to go to Hogwarts yet. “And if someone can’t survive being hit by a Muggle weapon, they deserve to die for being so weak and worthless anyway.”

Ominis had been unable to do anything as a child when his brother pushed him against the wall before storming away after Ominis told him their father shouldn’t have hurt him because of the lost Quidditch game, You shouldn’t have mocked the other team, but I don’t think you brought disgrace on the family even if the other students are now making fun of us, how would it have been better to not play at all?

Now Ominis wrenched his hand out of Morfin’s grasp, slammed the door closed with a flick of his wand, and walked back into the house.

A few minutes later Morfin sat down as far from Ominis as he could at the dining table. Sebastian put a cup of tea in front of Ominis, trying to touch his shoulder, retreating quickly when Ominis wrenched his body away. Ominis could tell by the scent of clove rising from the cup that it was the new limited edition Christmassy black tea Sebastian had bought in the beginning of December and refused to open until ‘the whole family is together’.

What family, Ominis thought. What family has he ever had that wasn’t drenched in death and suffering, wasn’t haunted by ghosts and the echoes of screams of pain and horror that will only be silenced after its last still living member finally dies too?

The tea was good, probably. He couldn’t tell, filled with too many painful emotions to be able to pay attention to something as banal as the taste of a tea. “When I got the letter asking whether I could take in my brother’s children while he is in Azkaban as his only still living relative, I sent back a letter saying I unfortunately cannot, without discussing it with Sebastian. When he found out about it, he was very angry I tried to hide it from him and that I would let my own niece and nephew be sent to an orphanage: it was our worst fight in a very, very long time. In the end, as I often do, I folded to Sebastian’s will, but with one condition: the children can stay with us only if they behave. You, Morfin, have not behaved for a single second you have ever spent with us, but I tried to be patient with you. But you have gone too far this time.”

“Come on! It was a Muggle weapon, Sebastian didn’t even have to go to St. Mungo’s, you are just being overdramatic because you hate me—”

“If the bullet had struck his neck or head instead of his shoulder he could have died instantly! If he hadn’t had the strength to apparate back he could have bleed out and died before you could have flown back with him on the broom. It was a miracle he could focus enough to not splinch himself. If I hadn’t been at home, he could have died! Magic can heal many wounds Muggle medicine can’t or only much less effectively, but it cannot resurrect the dead.”

Morfin didn’t have a comeback this time.

“Morfin,” Sebastian snapped, finally not trying to coat his anger and frustration with that thick veneer of patient understanding that often set Ominis’s teeth on edge. “Just apologize, promise us you will be more careful in the future and don’t do something so reckless again and we can all move on, alright? I know that even if you don’t want to admit it you are actually shaken—”

Morfin was quick to interrupt Sebastian now. “I have nothing to apologize for, like I give a shit about you. It doesn’t matter to me whether you are alive or not. I would rather be sent to Azkaban for your murder than spend Christmas with all of you, at least I would be with my father then.”

“That’s it.” Ominis put his cup down so clumsily the tea splashed onto his fingers. “We’re sending you to an orphanage. You can stay in Hogwarts when it isn’t summer, and once you become an adult you can go wherever you want, but you are not going to spend another day under our roof, Morfin Gaunt.”

“We’re not going to send him to an orphanage,” Sebastian said, his voice startled and uncertain in a way Ominis hadn’t heard him sound since their fifth year, when he asked Ominis if he had changed his mind and was going to turn him in after Ominis tore the hand Sebastian was clinging onto out of his desperate grasp.

“I refuse to wait until my nephew actually kills one of us.”

“Your nephew? Isn’t he ours?” Ominis gaped at Sebastian; was this really the issue he decided to focus on now? “Wouldn’t we be long married by now if we could be? If I was your actual husband, would you consider him my nephew too? Because I won’t let you kick him out.”

“You won’t let me?” Ominis’s fingers resting next to his teacup curled into a fist. His chest was filled with a pressure he couldn’t put a name to for a few seconds until he realized it was fear. “How are you going to do that? Are you planning to use the Imperius Curse on me?”

“I’m not,” Sebastian said gently, sensing Ominis’s fear and wanting to reassure him he won’t hurt him now like he had done in Hogwarts. Then his voice hardened. “But I’d rather move out and rent an apartment somewhere and live there with our nephew when he is not at Hogwarts than let him be sent to an orphanage.”

Ominis felt his nails dig into his palm painfully. He was nauseous. He was sure… he was quite certain Sebastian didn’t mean it, surely he was only trying to threaten Ominis to convince him to change his mind. But how dare he even say something like that, after everything—

“My nephew,” Ominis said, hiding his pain under an icy tone. “Because why would I want to marry a man who would choose someone so vile he has known for only a year who just tried to kill him over the man he has known for three decades and claims to love?”

He didn’t mean it. Of course he would marry Sebastian if it was possible, and surely Sebastian knew too that he didn’t mean it, he had to know—

“You are both so fucking pathetic, what the fuck are you even—” The rest of Morfin’s sentence disappeared into an ear-shattering scream that sounded like he was being crucioed before there was the sound of his chair tumbling backward and crashing onto the floor. Ominis jumped out of his chair and grabbed his wand, finding Sebastian kneeling in front of Morfin on the floor.

“Merope!” Sebastian shouted, barely audible over Morfin’s screams. “Stop whatever you are doing!”

Morfin stopped screaming, but there was only a moment of quiet before horrified and pained groans and whimpers began to uncontrollably pour out of his mouth.

“I don’t want him to say more mean things.” Merope sounded like she was crying, her voice thick with tears and hatred. “I don’t want him to ruin everything.”

Ominis shuddered, fighting through his horror as he stepped closer to Merope, reaching out to put his hand onto the top of her head, stilling its trembling.

“Merope,” he whispered, trying to hide from his expression how horrified he felt, how much he wanted to flinch when another wretched-sounding grunt forced itself out of Morfin that sounded like he was on the verge of choking and vomiting at the same time. “Please stop. Nothing will be ruined, I promise you. Can you believe me?”

Morfin fell quiet. Ominis stifled a sigh of relief, smiling down at Merope gratefully.

“I’m so sorry, uncle!” Merope sounded even more frightened than Ominis was, forcing her words through her sobs. “I didn’t want to— I don’t know how I— I didn’t want to do this at all, I was just so terrified. I don’t want Uncle Sebastian to leave us!”

Ominis kneeled down in front of Merope like he had done so often before, but now, for the first time, he hesitated before he pulled her into a hug, forcing his body to not show any sign of how much it didn’t want to hug his niece now. He drew soothing circles onto her tiny back until she calmed down enough to stop trembling in his arms, then took a hold of her hand, which felt as small and warm as ever, and, careful to not hold her too tight and upset her, walked with her to the other end of the table where Sebastian and Morfin were now standing, closer than Morfin had ever allowed Sebastian to stand to him before.

Morfin was no longer in pain but he was unable to speak, they found out from the shake of head and nod he answered Sebastian’s questions with. Sebastian muttered a Finite Incantatem that did not help, tried a few healing spells Ominis had never even heard of before – he really hoped they weren’t Dark Magic, though it didn’t really matter because they also didn’t have any effect.

St. Mungo’s, Merope informed Ominis, also had a lot of sparkly and colorful ornaments, though her voice was a lot less enthusiastic than at the Christmas Ornament Charity Fair.

“There are Christmas trees too, but they are not as pretty as ours,” Merope said, sounding close to bursting into tears again. Ominis wanted to cry too, but he stifled his tears to not upset Merope again.

Ominis turned towards the door when he heard it open, and the way Merope’s hand suddenly tightened in his made him quite certain Sebastian did not have a look of relief and joy on his face.

“Why don’t you come in, Merope?” Sebastian asked. “See what you have done to your brother.”

“Sebastian,” Anne said in a reproachful voice. “You don’t have to blame her.”

“It’s hard not to blame her just the tiniest little bit considering she did this to Morfin.”

Anne made a mocking humming sound. “Is there nothing you can think of that Morfin has done that may have caused Merope to lash out with magic she cannot control since she is a child? Come on, Merope, say hi to your brother.” Anne’s voice turned a lot gentler than when she was talking to Sebastian. “He’s still unable to speak, but he isn’t in pain anymore. Chin up, bunny, we will figure out how to fix him, okay?”

Anne sat down next to Ominis after the door closed, then she put something onto his head. He reached up to figure out what it was, feeling tinsel under his curious fingertips.

“We have to wear either a tinsel wreath or an ugly dark red hat with mistletoe berries,” Anne explained, her voice still gentle and a little playful. “And that shade of red clashes awfully with our lime-green uniform.”

“I’m sure it does,” Ominis said with a weak laugh. “So, how bad is the situation really?”

“I don’t know how a nine-year-old could cast a curse this powerful, none of the reparifors we have tried worked. There is still a lot we can try, I’m sure we can fix this, but it’s always more difficult if an ailment has been caused by a child who could not control their magic, the results are a lot more unpredictable.”

She is a Gaunt, that’s how, Ominis thought. Every Gaunt child breaks under enough pressure, and it is always terrible.

“Sebastian said you gave up on Morfin. He seemed to be quite upset about it.”

Ominis scowled. “And don’t I have the right to be quite upset about Morfin almost killing him and then not even showing any remorse?”

Anne put a hand onto his shoulder, then drew him into a hug when Ominis’s eyes welled up with tears. A lock of her hair that fell out of her bun tickled his cheek and she smelled like dittany, which made Ominis’s eyes almost overflow with tears as he remembered Sebastian’s pained whimpers as his fingers clutched Ominis’s hand feebly, the scent of the dittany potion Merope opened drifting to Ominis, making him snap at her, his panic making him sound angry: I have to heal him first, don’t distract me!

He didn’t start to weep only because Anne burst out giggling, distracting him from his pain.

“You smell like apple and cinnamon, is it the beard oil you got from the Minister? I wasn’t sure whether you accepted it only because you didn’t want to offend him, but of course you would actually use it. I wonder if uncle would have liked a beard oil as a Christmas gift – not something so sweet, that wouldn’t have fit him, but… there are unscented ones too, right? I don’t know if he would have even liked it, maybe he would have just stood there awkwardly—”

“I think he would have liked it.” Ominis wanted to add that he would have been happy to help Anne buy it, because even if apple and cinnamon were definitely too much for someone as austere as Solomon Sallow had been, there were other, more subtle scents that could have fit him, but he didn’t dare to say it, not when he had been for all intents and purposes married to his murderer for more than two decades.

“They are selling mulled wine in the visitors’ tearoom, do you want to check it out?” It wasn’t difficult to figure out that Anne didn’t want to stay here, waiting for Sebastian to open the door and find her trying to fight her tears back and ask what happened.

The mulled wine was nice, pleasantly hot and not too cloyingly sweet, though the taste of ginger was a bit more intense in it than needed.

“You know what?” Anne murmured just as Ominis leaned back in his chair, leaning closer to whisper into his ear. The scent of dittany assaulted his nose again; he suppressed his flinch. “Let’s go to the storage room, people are staring at you, Lord Gaunt. Do bring your mug,” she added with amusement when Ominis, in his embarrassment, left it on the table as he stood up.

The storage room had many different smells, something very bitter and a lot of herbal aromas, mercifully muffling the scent of the dittany. Ominis could barely feel the scent of the mulled wine rising from his mug as he took another sip.

“You know, giving up on your family is sometimes the right choice. Poppy left her parents behind and never regretted it, and I doubt you have ever missed your family much. But I do think there is a difference between turning your back on your guardian and on someone you are supposed to be the guardian of.” Anne fell silent. Ominis didn’t dare to lean back against whatever was behind him, afraid of knocking something down. “Uncle gave up on a cure, not on me, though to Sebastian it was the same thing. But he did give up on Sebastian. I saw it in his expression after he told Sebastian to stay away from us. I asked if he truly meant that he won’t let Sebastian visit us again, and when he said yes, I asked what about summer, where will he stay then? Spend it with your family? Ha! Sometimes I— I wonder if uncle hadn’t given up on Sebastian, maybe Sebastian wouldn’t have—”

“So you think now that it was justified?” Ominis’s grip on his mug tightened.

“What makes anything justified?” Anne shot back bitterly. “I’ve spent the last twenty-five years trying to convince myself that it was justified that I lied about uncle’s death so Sebastian won’t be sent into Azkaban. Yet the thought of sending him to that place is the worst nightmare I have – after Poppy getting eaten by a dragon, of course,” she added with a weak laugh. “It’s not justified that uncle died by his hands and yet he is living such a happy life now, but it also wouldn’t have been justified to send him to the worst place in the world for trying to stop my suffering. And I do think it was the right decision, seeing the person he has become. He is a good uncle, isn’t he? Merope always talks with so much love about him when she stays with us, and even Morfin looked genuinely grateful when Sebastian told him he will make sure he gets his voice back.”

Sebastian was a good uncle. He had given up working at Flourish and Blotts without a moment of hesitation when Ominis asked who will take care of Merope with both of them having full-time jobs, buying a dozen books about how to raise children on his last day, and did it all with as much enthusiasm as he had jumped into learning the Unforgivable Curses in Hogwarts. Ominis helped him with brushing and braiding Merope’s hair and reading her fairy tales, sat on the edge of her bed listening to her talk about the beasts Aunt Poppy showed her and how she wants to learn how to brew the potion that helps Aunt Anne not feel sick and be in pain, let her hug him last Christmas when he started to cry as pitifully as a child when she grumbled about how she is old enough to be able to put on her new socks without help, because it would have made Aunt Noctua laugh so softly, so happily, she should be here, with me, with us, why did she have to die, it’s so fucking unfair, laughed when Merope first slammed her small, flour-covered hand against his beard while he was stirring the melted chocolate, listened to her muse in Twilfitt and Tattings about how this dress has the biggest frills but that one’s colors are the prettiest before he asked what she thought about buying every dress she wanted, and was happy even as he thought: something bad has to happen soon, because it always does.

He was right: summer brought Morfin home from Hogwarts, and the vile brat smashed the peaceful joy of their new family to pieces. Merope was afraid of him, Ominis was angry at him, and Sebastian tried to be patient with him, offering to take him to ‘not dangerous window shopping trips’ to Knockturn Alley, not joining either side when Ominis and Morfin argued about Muggles and their war and Ominis’s job even though he knew Sebastian also disagreed with Morfin, which made him fume and not want to come home as soon as he could after work anymore. He was glad when the new school year started and the only reminder of Morfin’s existence were the letters from the headmaster informing his guardians that Morfin got into another duel with a student who asked him if his father was the head of the Muggle Liaison Office or was put into the hospital wing with his face covered with painful boils after insulting a Muggle-born student.

“I’ll write him a letter,” Sebastian had said quickly after the fifth letter, as if he expected Ominis to finally snap and send his nephew a howler. Ominis was especially exasperated after Henry Potter had marched into his office yesterday with another well-intentioned but absurd idea about how to end the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Potter threw Morfin’s behavior in his face, claiming that he didn’t actually care about Muggles if he lets his nephew behave in such a despicable way. Ominis asked him whether he was willing to try to convince every other wizarding government in the world too or he just didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘international’, and truly believed that Ominis was the only obstacle standing before his perfect new world in which revealing themselves to the Muggles after centuries of hiding in the middle of the worst war in their history would not create a lot more problems than it could solve.

After that, there was still the occasional letter from the headmaster about Morfin getting into trouble, but more often than not the owls from Hogwarts brought a letter to Sebastian from Morfin instead. Sebastian did not talk about their content, only saying that Ominis should write to Morfin too if he is curious about how he is doing the one time Ominis asked what the letter was about, after Sebastian got a letter that seemed longer than usual; Ominis could drink his morning tea and almost finish his breakfast before he heard the rustle of paper as Sebastian put the letter down.

“You should tell him this, Anne. I think it would make him happy.”

It wasn’t forgiveness, but Ominis knew it was so much more than Sebastian could have ever imagined he could get from Anne when he had cried onto Ominis’s shoulder in the beginning of their seventh year, his whole body trembling with misery, I would rather be dead than have my own twin believe I’m nothing but a monster.

“Maybe one day.” Anne sighed. “And he wouldn’t believe it now anyway, not while his nephew is in St. Mungo’s.” She took the tinsel wreath off Ominis’s head. “My break is over. I know it’s not easy with everything that just happened, but please try to enjoy Christmas and rest a little.”

“I’ll try,” Ominis nodded, giving Anne a grateful smile. “Happy Christmas, Anne.”

***

“Morfin,” Sebastian had said loudly, making Ominis stir from his nap on the couch, where he fell asleep nestled against Sebastian. “Why don’t you sit down? Do you want a cup of tea?”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

“Sit down,” Sebastian said. Morfin sat down. Ominis tried to lean away from Sebastian, but the arm around his shoulder tightened, keeping him in place, pressed against Sebastian’s side. There was a tension in Sebastian’s hold that suddenly made Ominis feel very awake. “I understand that you miss your father. I know you don’t want to be with us, I know you hate your uncle and I understand that too, even though you are wrong about everything you believe in. But your constant insults and threats are getting rather tiresome, so I just wanted to tell you that if you ever actually hurt Ominis – or Merope, for that matter –, I will kill you.”

Ominis tensed up in horror. Sebastian knead his shoulder to reassure him. It did not help at all.

“Whatever. I will kill you before you could kill me.”

“I have killed before,” Sebastian said in the same tone he would say that he had read a certain book before. Ominis felt all the blood turn into ice in his veins. He could have easily cast a Silencing Charm on Sebastian, but what would have been the point? It was better to witness this horrifying absurdity unfold instead of letting Sebastian talk with Morfin while Ominis was in the Ministry. “Did Professor Binns already add the goblin rebellion that ended in 1891 to his curriculum, or is it still too recent history?”

Morfin sounded confused. “I have no idea, I don’t pay attention in his classes.”

Sebastian gave a nostalgic snort. “We lived through that goblin rebellion. One of them tried to kill Anne, and I used the Imperius Curse to force him to kill himself before he could reach her. He was under my control, I could feel him struggle against it in vain. I could have made him flee, but why should I have done that? He would have come back and tried to kill us again, maybe bringing his friends too. It is a terrible feeling to kill someone. But if somebody tries to kill someone I love, why should I be the one to show them the mercy they didn’t want to show us?”

“You are bluffing,” Morfin said, but he didn’t sound very certain.

“I also killed my uncle—” Ominis gasped in distress, making Sebastian fall silent. He rubbed Ominis’s shoulder, which only made Ominis feel like he will throw up. He yanked Sebastian’s arm off his shoulder, moving to sit far enough on the couch no part of him was touching Sebastian. Sebastian didn’t try to gather him back against his side.

“Your own uncle?” Morfin exclaimed. There wasn’t even a trace of doubt in his voice anymore. “How? Why?”

“With the Killing Curse. The why is a bit more complicated to answer, but let’s just say that I’m really not good at being able to accept someone I love suffering or being hurt. Will you keep that in mind for the future, Morfin?”

Morfin was silent. Ominis still wanted to vomit, or at least rub his temple a little, but he didn’t want to show any sign of weakness in front of Morfin.

“Why should I not tell the aurors about this?” Morfin demanded suddenly.

Sebastian didn’t say anything. His silence was infuriating. How dare he tell Morfin about the secret that could ruin their lives if he didn’t have anything up his sleeve to protect them?

“Because who would believe you, Morfin?” Ominis pulled a mask of cold, aloof distaste onto his face to hide his nausea. “The absurd ravings of a criminal’s son accusing a popular journalist of the Daily Prophet and a respected contributor of several scholarly journals, whose partner is the right hand of the Minister himself? Not even if Henry Potter was the judge could the Wizengamot condemn Sebastian; I wouldn’t let there be a trial in the first place.” He crossed his legs, waiting for Morfin to say something. He wished he could see Morfin’s expression, know whether he was already convinced or not. He decided to err on the side of caution. “What would your father do to you when he is released from Azkaban if I destroyed the Gaunt heirlooms because of what you did? Though I suppose you wouldn’t have to worry about that if I told the Minister I think we should add a few more decades to his sentence—”

“You fucking slut!”

Ominis blinked, wondering if he had misheard the word.

“Morfin, you can’t call your uncle a slut.” Sebastian sounded giddy, and like he was desperately trying to not burst into laughter.

“Didn’t you kill your uncle?” Morfin sounded outraged. For once, Ominis couldn’t blame him. “And you! You are such a slut for letting this half-blood murderer bend you—”

“That’s enough!” Ominis snapped. “Go to your room and stare at the wall or whatever you have done all summer.”

Morfin didn’t have to be told twice. Ominis felt his nausea begin to drain out of his body as he listened to his nephew’s retreating footsteps, leaning back on the couch and letting Sebastian wrap an arm around his waist, though he didn’t lean into Sebastian’s touch, too upset to be able to accept it fully.

Half a year later, he was even more unable to accept Sebastian’s touch after they got home from St. Mungo’s, flinching and stepping away from the hand trying to pull him into an embrace.

“I thought it would be funny if I died there, killed by my nephew. I honestly couldn’t think of a more hilarious way to die. Don’t be fooled by how Morfin behaved when he got home, he was terrified, I’ve never seen him like this before. I told him it is fine, I can die like this, and he started ranting about how I have to be fucking kidding as I kept mumbling about how it’s okay. It hurt a lot and there was so much blood, but somehow I wasn’t afraid at all, and he asked ‘What about Ominis? Don’t you love him or whatever?’, and I remembered that I do love you, and thinking about that made it possible for me to apparate home.”

Ominis couldn’t say anything to Sebastian. He wanted to go somewhere, perhaps take a walk through Diagon Alley, but he felt so tired, and he was still worried about Merope too.

“Will you read to me, Uncle Sebastian?” Merope asked in a small voice Ominis couldn’t remember hearing from her since the day she had come into their life, when she hid under the blanket and refused to say anything to them until Sebastian asked whether she was actually a rabbit stuck in a little girl’s body, an idea she found so baffling she finally answered with an ‘I’m not’ in the smallest voice Ominis had ever heard.

“You know how to read, Merope.” Sebastian’s tone wasn’t rude, but the words were shockingly mean coming from him; Merope had told Ominis before that Sebastian would always put aside any research or article he was working on if Merope asked him to read something for her. “And you may be able to fool Ominis, but I can see through your innocent facade; you know how to undo the curse you put onto Morfin and you just don’t want to.”

“I really don’t know!” Merope exclaimed desperately. “I’m sorry, uncle, please believe me!”

Ominis gaped at Sebastian with disbelief. Sebastian scoffed.

“You have always been so easily fooled by the people you love, or you just don’t want to believe they are worse than you want them to be. But I’m not deceived by your act, Merope.”

Sebastian made dinner alone, refusing Merope’s timid offer of help. Ominis sat with Merope on the couch as she read her book out loud, which contained nothing but potion recipes. Not at all as fun as storybooks like The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which Ominis loved to discuss with Merope and Sebastian, or the colorful illustrations of dragons and other beasts in the books Poppy had gifted them, which Merope always described to Ominis in painstaking detail. She seemed to enjoy this book too even if Ominis didn’t have much to add to it, talking about how this ingredient was very rare and that ingredient could also be used in other potions but had to be boiled first in some cases or it would have no effect.

“Bunny, you are already better at Potions than Sebastian and I were when we took our N.E.W.T.s,” Ominis praised as he patted her head, his fingers bumping into one of her ribbons. “Do you want me to braid your hair?”

“Yes!” Merope chirped happily. “Thank you, uncle!”

It was calming to listen to her talk about the ingredients of the Befuddlement Draught while taking the ribbons and fabric flowers out of her hair one by one, paying attention to accidentally not tug on her hair painfully.

“I don’t want you and Uncle Sebastian to be angry at each other because of me or stupid Morfin, and I really don’t want Uncle Sebastian to leave us,” Merope said gloomily as Ominis transfigured one of the pillows on the couch into a comb. “Oh, I know!” she beamed suddenly.

“What do you know, bunny?” he asked, pressing the teeth of the comb against his palm to check it wasn’t too sharp and would not accidentally hurt her scalp.

“I know how to make sure Uncle Sebastian will always stay with us and you will not get angry at him even if he says mean things or does something bad!” He heard her flip through the pages of the book, crying out a joyful ‘Aha!’ when she found what she was looking for. “Love potions! This book has the recipe for Amortentia, but there are other potions too.”

“Merope,” Ominis scolded her as he began to brush her hair. “Forcing someone to be in love with another person with a love potion would be as bad as using the Imperius Curse on them.”

Ominis remembered Morfin taunting him with asking why they didn’t just use the Imperius Curse on the Muggle Ministers and make them end the war, making Merope enthusiastically chime in that it would indeed solve the problem of the Muggles killing each other, not finding the idea vile at all.

“But you already love each other!” Merope exclaimed, turning her head to look at him, which made the comb catch in her hair, making her hiss in pain. “It would make sure that won’t change no matter what happens, don’t you want to always love each other?”

Ominis sighed, carefully holding Merope’s hair down with one hand as he freed the comb. “If somebody falls out of love with another person, forcing them to love them again would be just as bad as if they have never been in love. And anyway, even if we sometimes fight and disagree about some things, after three decades I can say with absolute certainty that there is nothing Sebastian could do that would make me stop loving him.”

Merope hummed thoughtfully. “Because he killed Uncle Solomon and did a lot of other really terrible things in Hogwarts, right?”

Ominis hung his head. “Exactly.”

“Great!” Merope beamed. “I mean, he shouldn’t have done those things,” she added quickly. “Those were not great at all. I know that! But it is great that you will love him forever.”

She jumped off the couch, the book tumbling onto the floor with a thud, then grabbed Ominis’s hand and led him into the kitchen.

“Hello.” Sebastian’s voice was soft despite their earlier argument, like he was incapable of staying mad at either of them for long. “Could you give me the jar with the cardamom?”

“It’s too high,” Merope pouted. Ominis lifted her up, stepping closer to the cupboard and holding her steady so she won’t tumble out of his arms as she stretched her hand out towards the jar. “Uncle Sebastian, will you always love Uncle Ominis?”

“Of course,” Sebastian said instantly, not even a moment of hesitation, his voice warm with eager adoration. “Does he doubt it?” he asked, his voice turning colder.

“I don’t,” Ominis answered quickly. He smiled happily, feeling lighter and more joyous than he could remember since Sebastian informed them that Morfin will come home for the winter break. He felt the scent of cardamom as Merope opened the jar. “Merope does.”

“I don’t anymore!” Merope said. Suddenly Ominis felt Sebastian’s arms around him, hugging both him and Merope to his chest. Sebastian pressed a quick kiss to Ominis’s lips as he squeezed them in his arms, making Ominis give him an adoring smile and Merope giggle brightly. “Uncle Sebastian, we should make dinner for four. Morfin is fine now. Let’s put all the bad things behind us and enjoy Christmas!”

***

Morfin could indeed talk now, but he was most certainly not in the mood to celebrate Christmas.

Anne had taken him on a walk in St. Mungo’s because he looked restless sitting in his bed with nothing to do, refusing the books Anne offered him, and they stumbled into a patient who had spent eight years in Azkaban and survived it but could no longer function outside of the closed ward, unable to do anything but blink at the wall and sometimes scream and swear incoherently.

“I don’t want my father to become like that!” Morfin stormed into Ominis’s room a few minutes after Sebastian and Merope left to check out the hot chocolates sold in a temporary stand in front of the Leaky Cauldron, Merope grumbling with disappointment and Sebastian pressing a sweet kiss to the corner of Ominis’s mouth after Ominis apologized for not being able to join them because he just received another urgent letter from the Minister. “He still has to stay for four years in Azkaban, who knows what he will be like when he is finally released.”

“Nobody forced him to torture that bartender for insulting the Gaunt family,” Ominis shrugged as he leaned back in his chair comfortably, waving his wand to begin to read Evermonde’s letter. “He also cast the Cruciatus Curse on both several Muggles and me when I was a child, for which he hasn’t gotten any punishment to this day.”

“Stop that!” Morfin screeched. He sounded hysterical in a way that was quite different from his usual angry scowls and sneers. Ominis quieted the spell reading the letter. “Sebastian killed his own uncle and that goblin, he used all three Unforgivable Curses and yet hasn’t spent a day in Azkaban! Father told me about how you also used the Cruciatus Curse on a Muggle, what Merope did to me was the worst thing I have ever felt, I can’t imagine that even a Crucio could feel worse, and I almost murdered Sebastian! Either you ask the Minister to release my father or all four of us should join him.”

Ominis sighed with exasperation. “Your father is a dangerous criminal who hates me and everything I stand for and believes that I have disgraced the Gaunt family, why should I let him be free and risk him hurting me or my family?”

“Your family? We are not your children – though I know you only meant Merope, since it clearly doesn’t matter to you if my father or anyone would want to hurt me!” Ominis felt taken aback, not knowing what he should say to that, though it quickly became clear Morfin didn’t want him to say anything as he continued after making a strange, awkward sound like he was trying to clear his throat. “Anyway, when was the last time you have even met my father?”

Ominis raised his eyebrows coolly at his nephew, knowing quite well what to say to this question. “Oh, do you think his opinion has changed? Merope told me he set the Daily Prophet on fire every time there was an article in it about me.”

“My father is in Azkaban! Why isn’t Sebastian rotting there too? Because you are in love with him? Henry Potter is right about you, you don’t actually give a shit about what is right or wrong like you claim you do! You are a fucking hypocrite. Fuck you, I’ll— I tried to be nice, but I can convince you with a Crucio instead, you think I can’t cast it as well as my father?”

Ominis grabbed his wand as he stood up; Morfin was standing in front of his desk, his presence shaky and unfamiliar, but Ominis’s wand could still pick up that Morfin was pointing his wand at him. He knew he could easily disarm Morfin – Morfin probably waited for Sebastian to leave before he talked with Ominis because he didn’t want Sebastian to be able to protect him, but he had to be a fool if he thought Ominis could not protect himself too.

“My family may have broken me when I was a child, Morfin. But, except for your father, now they are all dead after living worthless, unhappy, miserable lives leaving nothing behind, a fate your father and you will also follow if you don’t change your lives drastically, and I have not become the person they wanted to turn me into. Every cruelty I have ever had to endure by their hands only made me more determined to turn my back on them. Cast the curse on me. Even if you are successful, it will only haunt you for the rest of your life, it won’t change who I am.”

“Crucio!” Morfin screamed.

Ominis flinched. Nothing happened. Morfin began to cry.

Ominis walked to his nephew and grabbed his cheek. Morfin flinched but didn’t pull away, his tears hot as they dripped onto Ominis’s hand.

He let go of Morfin, listening to him continue to weep uncontrollably, like a child. He was a child, Ominis reminded himself.

He thought about how Sebastian would have bleed out to his death if he hadn’t been reminded of his love to guide him home as he apparated back.

He thought about Aunt Noctua encouraging him to sit onto the broom behind Marvolo for the first time, telling him what a brave little boy he was, about letting go of Marvolo’s waist to raise his arms towards the wind to try to catch it between his fingers, Marvolo’s startled shout before he grabbed his wrist and told him to hold on, do you want to die, you damn brat.

He thought about how much he wanted to die after he tortured that Muggle, how he kept clawing at his face to get rid of the aftershocks of the Cruciatus Curses still wracking his body and the echoes of the Muggle’s screams battering his mind, screaming at his father: ‘Kill me now if you don’t want a son like me, because I will never obey you again!’. He heard the door slam closed with his father’s spell, felt Marvolo’s fingers in his hair and heard his sneering voice: ‘There is no point clinging to your useless beliefs, why don’t you know when to finally give up?’ before he slammed Ominis’s head against the floor so hard Ominis felt blood flood his mouth as he bit his tongue. When his father asked if he really wanted to die, Ominis could not answer through the blood, and Marvolo’s hand left his hair as he stood up and told their father that he was hungry and they should check if dinner was already done.

He thought about the next day, about the bitterness of the healing potion making him want to vomit as it coated his hurt tongue and the roof of his mouth like mud, about Marvolo threatening to force it down his throat if he doesn’t drink it when Ominis grimaced at the taste.

“The Blacks are coming soon, get your shit together,” Marvolo said, sounding as annoyed as he usually did. “Try not to say anything stupid in front of them, because next time I won’t shut you up with bashing your head against something and you might actually succeed taunting our father into killing you, and do remember that Aunt Noctua is no longer here to take your side either.”

Ominis’s mouth was still filled with that bitter mud, and it began to make so much saliva to try to get rid of the vile taste he could spit into Marvolo’s face. He was a little clumsy, some of his saliva spilling down the side of his mouth instead, but from the soft, surprised gasp Marvolo made Ominis did manage to send his message across.

“You are such a brave little boy,” Marvolo sneered, but there was also something brittle in his voice Ominis had heard only once before, when he answered their father’s musing about how Aunt Noctua might be gone for good this time with a ‘Good riddance’. Ominis bared his teeth at him, hating his brother even more for daring to repeat Aunt Noctua’s kind words from all those years ago with such heartless mocking now. “It’s a pity being brave will get you nowhere, no matter what those worthless Gryffindors claim. The only thing that matters is whether you are powerful enough to get what you want or not, and bravery has never made anyone powerful. It would be very brave to jump off a cliff, but if bravery is the only thing you have, you just end up becoming another dead body at the bottom of the cliff.”

Ominis wiped the corner of his mouth. “Did you taunt the Gryffindor Quidditch team with such witty and thought-provoking musings too before they defeated you?” He didn’t dare to wait for Marvolo’s answer, continuing quickly. “And I am not a Gryffindor either. I know being brave alone is not enough – you vile monsters have certainly taught me that lesson. I was defeated yesterday, but one day I will get away from all of you – I will get so far from you none of you will ever be able to do anything to me again, and I will— you will see, Marvolo, one day I will be—” He hadn’t been able to finish his sentence, but at least Marvolo hadn’t said anything either, answering his pitiful promise with only a disdainful and brittle snort before tearing the empty vial out of his hand and leaving.

“Apologize for almost killing Sebastian,” Ominis said, tugging a handkerchief out of his pocket and offering it to Morfin. Morfin sniffed loudly, tearing the handkerchief out of his hand.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, the word barely understandable. It would have been pitifully inadequate from anyone else; hearing it from Morfin was a veritable Christmas miracle.

“I haven’t gotten you a Christmas gift yet, I suppose,” Ominis mused, hiding his smirk behind his hand as he rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “I figured you wouldn’t want one, since you think Christmas is for the Muggles or whatever.”

The smirk must have been audible in his voice, because Morfin groaned after he blew his nose. “You petty bastard. I don’t know what the fuck Sebastian sees in you.”

Ominis laughed at him. “Happy Christmas, Morfin.”

“Fuck off,” Morfin scowled.

***

“I wasn’t expecting you to come,” Marvolo had said coldly.

“I wouldn’t have missed out on the chance to spit on his grave,” Ominis answered, the scent of flowers drifting down to him from the trees blooming above them. His wand could pick out the shape of their father’s grave, but he couldn’t tell if there were any flowers on it. “I certainly won’t visit it ever again. You could spit on it too,” Ominis added with a mockingly encouraging smile. “Though I suppose it wouldn’t be much of a statement from you, considering you like to spit at anything. You should piss on it; that would have weight even coming from you.”

Marvolo snorted with amusement. “In front of Headmaster Black?”

“Certainly not the worst thing the bastard has ever had to witness,” Ominis shrugged. “Marvolo. Listen. Do something with your life. Father is dead now, you can try out Quidditch again, who cares if you don’t win every match? It won’t destroy Salazar Slytherin’s legacy if—”

“Shut up,” Marvolo growled. He sounded very angry.

“I don’t give a shit about you, Marvolo. But Aunt Noctua wanted us to be—”

“Aunt Noctua died because of her own foolishness,” Marvolo had scowled. “She didn’t invite anyone with her because she knew we wouldn’t let her twist Salazar Slytherin’s legacy to fit her misguided vision, and she paid for her hubris with her life. Keep this in mind, Ominis: you cannot be a Gaunt and prosper if you turn your back on everything being a Gaunt means.”

Ominis hadn’t expected to meet his brother again after that day, but Marvolo was sitting in front of their fireplace now, his presence even more unfamiliar than Morfin’s, a dark mass tainting the familiar, warmly comfortable lines and shapes of Ominis’s home.

He had spent a lot of time taking a bath – Ominis wondered if he was hiding from them the way Ominis used to hide under his blanket as a child for as long as he could to avoid his siblings even when he was very hungry before finally giving up and leaving the room to find some food, a thought that was so absurd he decided Marvolo probably simply wanted a long warm bath after spending a year in the freezing maw of Azkaban –, but he refused to accept any of the clothes they offered him, instead putting his Azkaban uniform back after the bath.

“I think he likes the fire,” Morfin mused hopefully. “Why is he not talking though?”

“Check out tomorrow’s cover of the Daily Prophet!” Sebastian said loudly, his voice beaming. He threw an arm around Ominis’s shoulder, pressing a kiss into his beard. “Here is an article written by Henry Potter, a member of the Wizengamot who has most likely never seen an actual dragon, condemning the Minister for wanting to cancel the covert operation on the Eastern Front trying to use dragons in the war, and right next to it is my interview with Poppy Sweeting, the lead dragonologist of the biggest dragon sanctuary of our country, discussing the complete failure of the operation.”

Ominis laughed in delight, nuzzling his nose against Sebastian’s cheek. “That’s a bit mean.”

“Okay, that’s actually cool,” Morfin said, words Ominis never expected to hear from him, but it was the season of unexpected horrors and wonders, apparently.

“The Daily Prophet,” Marvolo said suddenly, his voice rough. Morfin gasped.

“Do you want to read the Daily Prophet, father?” He didn’t wait for Marvolo’s answer, tearing the newspaper out of Sebastian’s hand and dashing with it to his father. “They don’t bring it to Azkaban, right? A lot has happened in the last year!”

Marvolo was silent as he looked at the Daily Prophet, and so was everyone else, the only sounds the rustle of paper and the quiet crackling of the fire.

“Sebastian Gaunt,” was the only thing Marvolo said.

“It’s not like how that sounds!” Morfin said quickly. “I mean,” he added with a grimace in his voice. “It is like that. But! It’s all Potter’s fault.”

“Who the fuck is Potter?” Marvolo asked.

“He’s our nemesis,” Morfin said very earnestly.

That was a rather overdramatic way of putting it, Ominis thought. He didn’t hate Henry Potter; he considered him to be a much better person than many others he had to deal with, and genuinely admired his uncompromising devotion to help the Muggles. It was terrible to step aside and not do anything to help them while they were suffering so brutally, it made Ominis nauseous thinking about how many Muggles died from the same wound Sebastian so easily recovered from because of Ominis’s spell. It was absolutely unfair. But magic could not only heal but also hurt, and unleashing it in the war would only bring even more suffering; the Statute of Secrecy protected the Muggles from the spells of destruction and Dark Magic that would wreak even more havoc on their battlefield. Neither world was ready yet to live together, not when so many in the wizarding world still loathed Muggles, not when many Muggles would not be able to coexist happily and peacefully with them yet either. And what about the other countries who don’t want to reveal themselves now? Ominis had always considered himself a cautious person, but even if he had been as reckless as Sebastian was he would still understand that there was so much that could go wrong that Henry Potter either couldn’t comprehend in his naivety or simply decided to not care about.

“Nemesis,” Marvolo said flatly, but he also sounded just the tiniest bit curious. Morfin laughed happily.

“He wrote an article about how no Gaunt could ever want to help Muggles, and Sebastian wrote an article questioning how Potter could be against the Statute of Secrecy when he had an ancestor who was also a member of the Wizengamot who supported it, and Potter called Sebastian a Gaunt as an insult in the article he wrote back to Sebastian, and after that Sebastian had no choice but to use that name in his articles, because otherwise it would have seemed like he was ashamed to be considered one—”

Marvolo chucked the Daily Prophet into the fire.

Morfin was cheered up by his father’s presence and that he wasn’t left a husk after Azkaban. He offered to help Sebastian and Merope with making the dessert after Sebastian loudly told Merope that chocolate can help make those who have been attacked by dementors feel better. He grumbled about how all this shit would be a lot easier with magic, but he didn’t storm off, nor did he say anything back to Merope snapping at him for breaking the egg too roughly, what are you doing, I’ll show you Aunt Noctua’s method, you better pay attention, stupid. Merope was still as sullen as she had been in the morning when she refused Ominis’s offer of doing her hair before he had to leave for work, but at least she wasn’t hiding from her father, instead completely ignoring him.

“Ominis,” he heard Marvolo say, just as he considered offering his help too. Ominis walked to the fireplace and sat in the armchair, a few feet from where his brother was sitting on the rug. The presence before the fire was motionless, and Ominis couldn’t tell if Marvolo was looking at him or at the fire, or perhaps somewhere else, looking around Ominis’s home.

“Morfin told me you have the ring and the locket in Gringotts.”

For a second Ominis had thought Marvolo would thank him for getting him out of Azkaban.

“Indeed. One half of the key is in the belly of a Hungarian Horntail, and the other I entrusted to my dear friend, the Minister for Magic.”

The shape on the rug jolted: for a moment it seemed like Marvolo would lunge at him. Ominis’s fingers tightened around his wand. He knew he could protect himself against a man weakened from a year in Azkaban, but he also remembered the blood in his mouth as Marvolo slammed his head against the floor and the excruciating pain of his Cruciatus Curse. Marvolo must have remembered something too, perhaps Ominis’s whispered warning as he pressed the back of his hand against his brother’s ice-cold cheek on the shore of the North Sea about how it would take only a few words with the Minister to throw him back into Azkaban if he does anything ill-advised, perhaps with a life sentence this time: he suddenly swayed back, retreated, sitting back onto the rug.

“How did you open my box?” Marvolo asked.

“Sebastian opened it.” Ominis leaned back in the armchair and crossed his legs, but didn’t let go of his wand. “I was surprised to find another box in the box I could open with Parseltongue, were you worried I will break into your house to steal it from you? I suppose you were right to worry. Sebastian read a chapter in a book about how to break locks created with Dark Magic, tinkered with it a bit, and activated the curse that sent him to St. Mungo’s for a week, but managed to force it open just before he fainted from the pain and blood loss.”

Ominis hadn’t looked into the box while Sebastian was in St. Mungo’s, taking the week off to take care of Merope, visiting Sebastian every afternoon after taking her to Anne and Poppy once they got off work, spending hours sitting in an uncomfortable chair listening to Sebastian’s pained gasps until the door opened and Merope ran in, talking excitedly about how she painted a hippogriff or beat Aunt Poppy at gobstones, well, Aunt Anne helped a lot, but still! She burrowed into Ominis’s embrace when she saw that Sebastian was still unconscious, and they stayed there until the healer said it is time for all visitors to leave.

Sebastian awakened on the seventh evening, his will stronger than the curse, and was less shaken by the ordeal than Ominis, asking him what the box contained before Ominis could even hug him, offended when Ominis told him he didn’t want to find out while he wasn’t sure whether Sebastian will even survive its curse. He was also afraid of checking it for another reason: there was a small part of him he had long believed to have withered away but was now raising its head with tentative curiosity that wanted to find something in the box that would prove Marvolo still had something good left in him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to find, a picture of his children, Aunt Noctua’s Quidditch gloves, the little clay snake Ominis had made when he was six and gifted to his brother? He thought about the warmth in Anne’s voice after he had showed the twins the Undercroft as she described the photographs and other things she collected about their family, heirlooms nobody else would pay even a knut for but which meant so much to her because she loved her family, this is a Chocolate Frog Card mom got for winning a chess competition in her fifth year, this is a photograph of dad fallen asleep with a book on his face and uncle looking very exasperated, this is a fan mom got for dad for their first anniversary.

The box Sebastian had almost died to open contained only Salazar Slytherin’s locket and the Peverell ring.

“Morfin told me a lot about your Sebastian. Unforgivable Curses, murders, helping you survive the Scriptorium, reading Salazar Slytherin’s book and using Dark Magic, managing to open my box and surviving my curse. My son also asked me – begged me, it was very pathetic – to not hurt you because if I do Sebastian will without a doubt kill me in revenge. Some would consider all that impressive, I suppose, especially from a half-blood. It’s funny you let him get away with all that, though, after spitting into our faces about how much you hate the Dark Arts and Salazar Slytherin’s legacy and everyone who wants to do anything with any of it.”

Ominis gave his brother a serene smile. “It takes some time for all of us to figure out what is truly important to us, what make us happy and our life worth living.” He leaned forward, his smile widening as he uncrossed his legs. “Have you figured it out yet, Marvolo?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and Marvolo didn’t throw one at his retreating back as he walked into the kitchen, where he was greeted by a spoon nudged against his mouth, a delicious aroma teasing his nose as he obediently opened his lips.

“Uncle, what is going to happen to father? He won’t stay with us, right?” Merope asked.

Ominis gave Sebastian an appreciative smile to show the sauce tasted perfect. “I don’t know, Merope.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Merope exclaimed angrily. “Uncle Sebastian is supposed to be the one who does stupid and bad things without thinking about what will happen later, not you! You are not going to send me back to Little Hangleton with father, right? I don’t want to leave you and Uncle Sebastian! Father can go back and he can take Morfin with him, but I want to stay with you!”

“You don’t even miss little Tom Riddle?” Morfin taunted her. “Maybe now that you are wearing fancy dresses he won’t call you a weird beggar girl if you ask him to let you feed his horse some grass. Just don’t let Ominis do your hair, yesterday you had four green bows on the left and two green and two red on the right, you looked as ridiculous as—”

“Oh, shut up! I don’t care about Tom Riddle, he can ride his stupid horse alone. I can go with Aunt Poppy on hippogriff rides any time, which is so much cooler! You and father should get a puffskein though since I won’t go back, that way at least someone will take care of the leftover on the dishes— not Puffity though, give her back!”

“That’s enough,” Sebastian said with soft sternness, taking the puffskein from Morfin. “As for the future, I don’t want to lose either of you—”

“I am going back to Little Hangleton,” Morfin protested. “There’s no way father would want to stay here, and I don’t want to stay here either anyway.”

Ominis gasped when the puffskein’s tongue poked his chin, grimacing in annoyance as he took a step away from Sebastian.

“It’s probably the beard oil,” Merope giggled. “She just licked the chocolate out of the bowl, I think she wants more sweet things.”

“I didn’t even use it today.” Ominis sighed in exasperation. He forwent the beard oil that morning, not wanting the Muggle politicians to think him frivolous and uncaring coming to a discussion about their devastating war smelling like apple and cinnamon.

“Father!” Morfin said suddenly. “You are shivering.”

“I’m not shivering,” Marvolo scowled, his teeth chattering. “You can both stay here, I don’t care. I didn’t want either of you, I don’t know what the fuck I should do with you, I had to have children because somebody had to continue the bloodline, but I— I don’t want—” He fell silent.

“You don’t have to figure out anything right now,” Sebastian said gently. “Spending a year in Azkaban would have fucked up people a lot better and happier than you, I think you should just get a warm blanket—”

“Don’t patronize me,” Marvolo snarled, beginning to walk towards Sebastian. “You think you are somebody, you worthless bastard, you damned—?” The rest of his words froze in his throat when he got close enough to Sebastian that the puffskein in his arms could reach Marvolo with her tongue, and from the way he sputtered indignantly it hit either his nose or mouth.

“Father,” Morfin said, his voice strained, like he was trying not to laugh and enrage his father further, and also like he was sad. For the first time Ominis let himself feel sorry for him: it must have hurt to hear that his father didn’t want anything to do with him after rescuing him from Azkaban. “Do you remember when on the winter break of my first year we wandered around outside, and it was really cold but the snow made things sparkle, and I talked about our Flying classes, and then I said that I would like to fly to the Riddle house and give a good scare to those worms hovering in front of their window, and you told me to shut up but I saw in your eyes that you thought it would be funny too, and I think you looked at me like you were also proud of me, I don’t know why— I didn’t care that we couldn’t afford an expensive broom like Malfoy or Black has, if that’s what you were worried about—”

“I wasn’t—” Marvolo growled as the puffskein attacked him again. “I’ll chuck this damn thing into the fire.”

“If you hurt Puffity, the pain I will make you suffer through will be a thousand times worse than spending the rest of your life in Azkaban would be!” Merope shouted at her father.

Marvolo laughed. It was a quick and dry sound. It wasn’t happy, but there was some amusement in it, and it sounded impressed too. “Morfin told me about how you cursed him. I used to think you were a damn Squib, Merope. Morfin exploded a mug when he was three, how could a descendant of Salazar Slytherin not show any sign of magic even though you were already eight? Morfin, did it really hurt as much as you said it did?”

“Yes,” Morfin said quietly. “Here is a blanket, father. It smells like dittany: some of the potion must have spilled onto it while Ominis and Merope healed Sebastian after I shot him.”

Marvolo snorted. “He isn’t that impressive if he could have died from a Muggle weapon, is he?”

“I could shoot you with a rifle to see how impressive you are,” Sebastian offered cheerfully. “And you can’t use magic, that would be cheating. You think the bullet will stop before your face after recognizing the blood of your illustrious ancestors flowing through your veins?”

“Isn’t dinner already done?” Morfin asked quickly. “I’m hungry.”

Ominis sat down at the end of the table, feeling like he was in a strange dream. Sebastian’s hand steadied him as he pressed it against Ominis’s shoulder blade before it left as Sebastian moved back to the kitchen. Merope offered to help Sebastian, who laughed gently as he thanked her and told her it will be quicker if he levitates everything onto the table. Marvolo’s blanket brushed against the back of Ominis’s hand hanging by his side as he walked past him to sit down, making Ominis raise it and rest his elbow on the table instead.

Ominis didn’t know what the future will bring any more than he had known after he finished his letter in which he accepted temporary guardianship of his brother’s children, listening to the soft sounds of Sebastian lighting the candle and melting the wax to seal the envelope as he took a few sips of Minister Evermonde’s Dragon Barrel Brandy, hiding his scowl against the rim of his glass when Sebastian told him Aunt Noctua would be proud of him, annoyed by being so blatantly manipulated even as the knowledge that Sebastian was right did make him feel better.

But he hadn’t known either when he left Aunt Noctua’s home for the last time, not knowing she won’t be found there ever again. Nor had he known when Anne asked him whether he has ever flown on a broom before their first Flying class, hesitating for a few seconds before telling her he hasn’t, feeling guilty and even a little sad until Sebastian and Anne began to argue about which one of them should take Ominis on his first ride, their enthusiasm making him feel warm as he laughed shyly when Sebastian linked their arms to stake his claim even as Anne scoffed that she was a better flyer. Nor had he known when Solomon gruffly told him he doesn’t have to sit on the chair so stiffly, I won’t say I don’t have any reservations about you because you are a Gaunt, but if you say you want to be better than the rest of your family, I won’t doubt you as long as you don’t do anything to make me question it. Nor had he known when Sebastian cried onto him with his face pressed against Ominis’s back as he hugged him, and Ominis, not protesting his embrace, realized, with a feeling of immeasurable pain that was like a sword thrust between his ribs, leaving relief bubble up from the wound, that he really did mean it when he had said a year ago that they must face whatever happens next together.

He grabbed his wand laying on the table next to him as he curled his other hand into a fist, looking at the presences in front of him. In that moment, even though they were silent, somehow they all felt familiar to him. It felt like they were waiting for him to say something before they began to eat, and Ominis allowed himself to have faith in the future once again.

“Let’s have a happy Christmas.”