Helios’s Awakening 03

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Helios’s Awakening

Part the Third—
Do you walk in the valley of kings? Do you walk in the shadow of men who sold their lives for a dream?
—“Glitter and Gold,” Barnes Courtney

Draco looked approvingly at Helios when he and Uncle Regulus arrived by portkey the next day shortly after ten in the morning.  Helios’s fringe was swept away from his clear forehead, and Draco’s eyes had immediately been drawn to it.

It had been a bit of a trial getting the Muggle to tell them which campsite they were assigned to, but in the end Uncle Regulus and Helios had found the tent, which was large, white, and had peacocks tethered to it.

The tent was undoubtedly the most outrageous one that Helios could see, and most were out of the ordinary in some fashion.

“How do the Muggles not notice?” Helios asked.

“Spells,” Regulus told him as he brought over Helios’s trunk, that was stock full of his new clothing that had arrived by owl the night before.  “Plenty of Notice Me Nots.  You noticed there was that wizard who kept on casting obliviates on him.  It’s all in hand and we wizards have been arriving for months for the World Cup.”

Helios shivered.  The Muggle proprietor’s brain was going to be mush by the end of the World Cup.

Draco came up to him and clasped his hand in an odd form of recognition.  “Come,” he said.  “We’re in back.”  If his blue-grey eyes lingered a little too long on Helios, he supposed he couldn’t blame himself for the shiver that ran down his spine.

Grabbing his trunk, Helios ducked into the tent and passed a spacious living room and several private rooms until they were well and deep into the tent that was obviously larger on the inside than on the outside.  What wonderful magic was this?  “Mother wanted to give us one of the regular rooms when she was planning everything,” Draco explained, “but I told her your maidenly virtue wouldn’t stand for it.  Didn’t think you could bear sharing a bed with me.”  He looked over his shoulder and leered slightly.

Helios squeaked.

Draco just rolled his eyes.  “Exactly what I thought.”  He opened the door and showed a room of divans and couches.  A thin veil of smoke hung in the air and Helios avoided the urge to cough.  “I thought we could crash here.  It’s the smoking room.”

Coming into the room, Draco claimed a divan and took out a packet of rolled cigarettes.  “Want one?”

“You smoke?”

“It’s practically required,” Draco laughed, his thin fingers snapping together and igniting into fire.  He lit a cigarette, took a drag, and blew the smoke out of his nose. 

Helios could only stare and want Draco even more.  How could smoking be attractive?

“You didn’t smoke yesterday at Grimmauld Place.”

“It was the tea,” he explained, holding the cigarette between his pointer and third fingers in a long practiced movement.  “It stops the cravings.  Father thinks I shouldn’t be a slave to nicotine, but it’s magically enhanced.”

That made sense.  It was probably dipped in some potion.

“My eyes are here, Helios,” Draco reminded him.

Helios had been looking at his long fingers and his thin lips.  He shook himself and reminded himself he didn’t want a repeat of yesterday.

Plopping down his trunk, he claimed a divan and spread out across it.

“I must say you look good in our fashions,” Draco complimented.  “Then again, you are a Black.  Blacks never do anything half shot.”  He took another drag on his cigarette.  “Look at Aunt Dromeda.  She wanted a separation from her Mudblood of her husband, and she forced his hand by getting pregnant by another wizard.  Pure brilliance.  If she’d been a Mudblood, it would have spelled automatic disinheritance.”

Looking up sharply, Helios took Draco in.  “I didn’t know that.”

“Well,” Draco decided, “now you do.”  He stretched out like a kneazle, cigarette in his left hand, tunic riding up on his stomach.

Helios turned away so he wouldn’t be caught staring again.

“She came to Father for help, you know,” Draco continued, flicking ash into a tray, “when she first decided on separation.”  Helios turned to him and arched an eyebrow in question.  “Mother wouldn’t speak to her.  Neither would Uncle Regulus and Uncle Sirius was a bit flighty, even then.  She needed help getting out, getting her daughter out, so she went to Father for help.  I’m not sure what advice he gave her, but she was out within a month and living in a spare bedroom at Malfoy Manor.  You were born there.”

Helios blinked.  “I had no idea.”

“Why should you know?” Draco asked the room at large.  He shrugged, his shoulders elegant.  “I’m telling you now.”

“Smoking again, are we?” a voice from the door asked.

The cousins turned and saw a tall, blond wizard in the doorway with a pointed face and sharp silver eyes.  He was undoubtedly Draco’s father. 

“They’re Moroccan cigarettes,” Draco protested.

Mr. Malfoy just looked at him cuttingly before turning to Helios.  “We’re so happy to have you here, Helios.  Your mother failed to mention to anyone that you were given to James Potter and his Mudblood wife to look after.  If she had, we could have taken you under our wing much sooner.”  The last was said almost as a threat.  “We are having words.”  He glanced back at Draco who was putting out his cigarette.  “Do you really have to sleep in the smoking room?  It’s not good for your lungs.”

“I thought Helios would be more comfortable here.”

“Helios would be more comfortable in one of the bedrooms.  Put yourselves in the maidens’ quarters if you have to.  I don’t want you going outside and smelling like Moroccan tobacco.”

Draco grimaced.

“Up!” Mr. Malfoy commanded before he left the doorway.

“Maidens’ quarters?” Helios asked.  He wasn’t certain exactly what that meant, but he wasn’t entirely sure he liked it.

“Yes,” Draco said, clearly put upon.  He got out a breath mint and popped it into his mouth.  “Let’s go.”  They each picked up their trunks and walked back down the hall until they came to a door that Draco opened for them.  It led to a room with three single beds, each with a canopy, that was clearly meant for young girls.

“Er—” Helios began.

“Do you want to share a bed?” Draco asked perceptively.

“That might be—”  Helios was afraid he’d snuggle close to Draco, and if he snuggled close to Draco, he might—

“It’s this or sharing a bed.”

“Right,” Helios agreed as he took a step in and claimed the nearest bed.  It was done up in flouncy pinks and yellows.  It looked like a unicorn had vomited sparkles all over it.

Draco came up behind him and dropped his trunk at the end of another bed.  He kicked it once for good measure before he sat down elegantly at the end of it.

“Your scar’s gone.  I take it it’s not a glamor.”

“Is that what Uncle Regulus is telling you?”  No one had even mentioned it this morning.  Andromeda had stared at his forehead for a long moment, nodded, and then asked Kreacher to pour him some tea.  If Uncle Regulus had noticed, he’d said nothing.

“Probably,” Draco agreed.  “It’s the only rational thing to tell anyone, other than you went to a Healer.”

“Mother didn’t mention that.”

“Then I wouldn’t mention it either.”  He looked at Helios from underneath his eyelashes.  “I’d offer to have myself obliviated, but I don’t want to forget a single thing about you.”  His blue-grey gaze was heavy on Helios and Helios had to keep himself from blushing.

The last seemed almost like a confession and Helios’s breath hitched. 

“I do hope Aunt Dromeda applies to have you resorted.  I don’t like thinking of you being with Weasleys,” Draco continued on, as if he hadn’t said anything highly personal just a moment before.  “I know it’s Father who doesn’t like the Weasleys, but I just don’t trust them.  The girl was killing roosters and writing in their blood second year and didn’t even get expelled.”

“She was under the influence of a dark artifact,” Helios explained.

“What dark artifact?  The school governors were never made aware of a dark artifact,” Draco insisted.  “Father’s a governor, you see.  He was instrumental in getting the Triwizard Tournament to Hogwarts last year.  It was him and the other board members Aunt Dromeda appealed to in order to get your name unselected.  They’re the ones who put pressure on Crouch and, by extension, Bagman.”

“Well, I wish she’d talked to me about it,” Helios said hotly.  “I didn’t even know I was Helios Black or had a mother last year.  I was still under the impression James and Lily Potter were my parents—and the markings on my back were just that, markings.”

Draco paused, as if considering.  Then, “Shameful,” he agreed as if making a decision.  “I’ll be having words with Uncle Sirius if he ever resurfaces.”

“He resurfaces every Hogsmeade weekend,” Helios admitted begrudgingly.  “He likes to check up on me.”

Draco looked intrigued by this.  “Really?  Hmm.  Never met him myself.  Does he look like the family?”

Helios considered.  “It’s hard to tell. He looks half-starved.”

Draco nodded, his hair falling back into his eyes, distracting Helios.  “I suppose he would, being on the run.”  He paused.  “He didn’t tell you about any of us, did he?”

“No.  Not even when I asked.”  And Harry had tried to ask.  He’d mentioned the tattoo and how it had a name on it, but Sirius had just brushed it off, as if it were nothing.  Clearly it wasn’t nothing.

Draco ran a hand through his hair.  It caught the light and Helios had to keep himself from staring.

“How do you feel about that?”

“I haven’t really had time to process it.”

“Well, now that you are having time to process it, how do you feel?”  He leaned forward, for once seeming human as he hunched his shoulders and rested his elbows on his knees.  “I mean, what have you told your friends?”

“What friends?” Helios asked seriously, looking away.

Draco took this in.

It was a good point.  Ron had stopped talking to him when his name came out of the Goblet of Fire.  Hermione had taken his side, saying she was remaining neutral, and then had been swept into the arms of Viktor Krum.  Seamus and Dean hadn’t been as jealous as Ron, but had given him the cold shoulder.  Neville, poor Neville, had been lost in all of it.  The twins thought it had been a lark and wanted to know how he had done it, but they couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told them. 

Ginny.  Ginny had been bullied by Ron and her elder brothers.  What good was she anyway?  She was a third year girl who fancied him.

“We’re all you have then.  The Blacks and the Slytherins.”

“What Slytherins?”

Draco looked at him through his eyelashes.  They were golden, Helios had noticed earlier that year.  Not as blond as the rest of his hair, but still golden.

“You’ll have the Slytherins,” Draco promised.  “As I said, it would be a crime not to have you resorted.”  His blue-grey eyes caught Helios’s.  “But that doesn’t answer my question.  How do you feel?  About Uncle Sirius?”

Helios turned his thoughts inward.  He’d had a mother all this time and Sirius had never said.—but “It all has to do with Voldemort, doesn’t it?” Helios decided.  “It wasn’t safe until last week.  No one’s said how it wasn’t safe, but it wasn’t.  Mother said he’s not defeated, but—something’s changed.”

Draco snorted elegantly.  “If the Dark Lord was still a threat, and that’s a big if, how would he not have been a threat to you—the Boy Who Lived—”

“I’m not that,” Helios insisted, cutting Draco off and clearly startling him.  “Isn’t that the point of all this?  I’ve never been Harry Potter.  I’ve always been Helios Perseus Black.”

Draco looked at him pensively and then nodded.  “Of course, Helios,” he said carefully.  “I’m sorry.” 

Helios got the feeling that Draco rarely apologized for anything.  It wasn’t in his nature.  But Draco was apologizing to him. 

Their blue-grey eyes connected and Helios felt a monumental shift take place.  Another shiver ran down his spine and he felt like he could sway forward and catch himself on Draco, but what would happen after that, Helios wasn’t entirely certain.  Would they just continue to stare at each other?  Would Helios dare to reach up and touch Draco’s face?  That possibility seemed ridiculous.  Draco was so far beyond him, Helios would never be allowed to touch him, however much he might want to.

Draco cleared his throat a few seconds later and the moment was over.

“I think Theo is here,” he opened with.  “Theo Nott.  He has an older brother, Theodred.  Hard to keep them separate.  Theodore.  Theodred.  Then Marcus Flint has tickets.  You’ll remember he was Slytherin Captain when we were second years.”

“Right,” Helios agreed.  “Let’s keep away from Finnegan.  I think he’s here.”

“The Weasleys won tickets,” Draco shared.  “They’re going to be in the top box with us.  I heard Father mention it this morning.  No getting around it.”  He was definitely scowling now.  “Maybe they won’t bring the Mudblood.”

“Hermione—”

“You’re right, she’ll be with the Bulgarians,” Draco cut in nastily.  “Mudbloods aren’t even allowed at Durmstrang and Krum dated one.  What is he thinking?”

What was Hermione thinking?  He was a duck footed lout on the ground who could barely speak English, but somehow they had connected.  She read books in the library and he stared at her.  Helios had seen them once or twice when he had been hiding from other Gryffindors.

“Didn’t he sit at the Slytherin table all last year?”

“Not like any of us could get a word in,” Draco complained.  “He didn’t speak a word of Russian or German.  He was practically uncivilized.  How did he learn anything at Durmstrang if he didn’t speak either of those languages?”

“Translation spells?” Helios speculated.

“—will only get you so far.”  Draco turned around and took a pillow off the bed, tossing it into the air.  “Hesse was a far more interesting conversationalist.”

As Helios had no idea who Hesse was, it wasn’t like he could comment.

“Huh.” 

Draco was looking at him from underneath his lashes again.  Helios looked back.  That didn’t cause Draco to look away.

A chime went through the tent and Draco looked up at the ceiling.  “Time for lunch.  We bachelors have to rough it out with only house elves.  That means we don’t have to use the nice china.”  He winked at Helios.

“You brought house elves to a Muggle camping site?” Helios asked as he got to his feet.

“Of course we did,” Draco protested as he threw the pillow back on the bed.  “You don’t expect us to pitch our own tent, do you?”  He seemed utterly flabbergasted by the notion.

How did the Muggles not see the house elves? Helios wondered.

They walked out of the room and down the hall, out of the tent, to where there was now a walled fire with sausages cooking over it. 

A spell immediately hit Draco as soon as they appeared and he shivered. 

“I didn’t smell of smoke!” he complained, but it seemed Mr. Malfoy disagreed if the look on his face was anything to go by.

“I’d ask your cousin, but he’d only lie for you,” Mr. Malfoy decided, indicating they should take their seats.  “You’re already as thick as thieves.”

Draco seemed pleased.  “I told him he should get resorted.”

“Is there any possibility Helios won’t get resorted back into Gryffindor?” Mr. Malfoy asked as Regulus came over and took his seat, ruffling Helios’s hair. 

“I think there’s enough Black in him,” Regulus commented, accepting a plate of bangers and beans.  “It was growing up with those horrible Muggles that made him feel like he had to be brave.”

“It was brash to put his name in the Goblet of Fire,” Mr. Malfoy put in.

“Or cunning,” Draco argued.

Helios didn’t like that they were having a conversation about him while he was sitting right there.

“He got around the age line,” Draco reminded everyone proudly.  “No one knows how.”

“Yes, Helios, how did you get around the age line?” Mr. Malfoy asked, looking up at him.

Regulus put down his cutlery and looked up, his blue-grey eyes shining.  Draco had likely looked over at him.  He could feel all of their gazes.

“A little of this, a little of that,” he answered.  “It wasn’t just one thing.”

“So you’re admitting it now,” Mr. Malfoy asked.  “You’ve been saying up until this point that someone set you up.”

Helios let his shoulders hunch.  “No one will believe me anyway.”

Mr. Malfoy’s silver eyes gleamed and he went back to his sausage.  Regulus and Draco, after a moment, did the same.  It seemed the conversation was closed. 

At one point, Draco tried to take out his cigarettes, but Mr. Malfoy accio’ed them into his hand.  It seemed the family was supporting Ireland despite knowing Krum personally.  Draco felt it very keenly that he was dating a “Mudblood” and he was afraid of seeing Granger on the viewing screen. 

“She could be in France,” Helios suggested carefully after a long pause.  “They always go this time of year.”

“France?” Draco asked.  “Do you think?”

“Well, they go every year.”  He shrugged.  “She could have come back.  But I mean, she might not have.”

Draco looked hopeful.

Unfortunately, Minister Fudge came over to personally escort them to the stadium.  Helios looked him over warily.  He was wearing one of his pinstriped set of robes, a bowler hat on his head, and kept on shaking Mr. Malfoy’s hand.  He then went to speak to Regulus and apologize for all the “unnecessary confusion” over the business about being a Death Eater.

“Only took sixteen years,” Helios sniggered to Draco behind their hands.

“And these young men must be your sons!” Fudge suggested as he turned to the cousins.

“Not quite,” Regulus apologized.  “You know Draco Malfoy, of course.”  Draco dutifully held out his hand.  “And then my cousin Andromeda’s son, Helios Black.”

Minister Fudge looked directly at Helios and didn’t recognize him.  Granted, he was wearing dark blue robes with a high collar and tailored sleeves, the tunic running down over his thighs, which was actually tailored to him instead of being Dudley’s cast offs.  His eyes were also a blue-grey and free of glasses, the once noticeable scar was missing from his forehead, and he’d lost some baby fat in his face.

“Ah, yes, young man.  Nice to have another Black representing the name well.”  He took his hand and shook it.  “Who is your father?”

“His sister,” Regulus quickly put in, “just qualified as one of your aurors.  Nymphadora Tonks.”

“An auror?” Fudge asked, looking impressed.  “You must certainly come visit her.  You and your cousin, young Malfoy.  How exciting for you both.”  (Helios and Draco shared a look.)  “Yes, Lucius, I think the young men would like that immensely.”

“I know Helios will certainly appreciate it,” Mr. Lucius agreed, looking over at the two cousins, “and I doubt Draco would object.”

“Then it is arranged!  Now—if you will come this way—”

Mr. Malfoy and Regulus fell into step with Minister Fudge, and Helios and Draco walked behind them through the camp toward the large stadium in the distance.  It loomed large over the trees in East Anglia, hidden from view from Muggles, especially the Muggle proprietors of the campsite where all of the wizarding spectators had pitched their tents.

“There,” Draco murmured, leaning in toward Helios so his breath was on Helios’s cheek, “we don’t even have to infiltrate the Auror Department.”

“How will Nymphadora take it?”

“Well, if she doesn’t want to piss off the Minister,” Draco replied archly, “she’ll take it as graciously as she can.  Now we have Quidditch to look forward to.”

The stands were expansive.  They were in the top box so they had to climb private stairs in the back all the way to the top of the stadium and then were in an exclusive enclosed box with 360-degree windows with a bar and popcorn stand for their convenience. 

Helios and Draco took seats at the top so they could have unimpeded views of the sky and sank into their comfortable chairs, happy with their pear popcorn and squashes. 

The Weasleys unfortunately arrived just before start of game.  There were the usual suspects.  Mr. Weasley with the entire brood, bar one or two.  Fred, George, (Percy wasn’t there), Ron, and Ginny.  There were also two older ones who Helios didn’t recognize.  Bill and Charlie, if memory served.  Hermione was lacking, not that Draco minded. 

Helios urged Draco to stay in their seats.  “Not worth starting an argument,” he suggested.  “Trust me, I live with Ron in the same dorm.  He’s like a crup with a bone.  He will never give up and do we really want to start a duel with the Minister for Magic here?”

Draco sulked a little.  “No.”  But he leaned forward and took Helios in.  “You’re far more desirable a companion.”  He reached out and took Helios’s chin between his fingers and turned it slightly to the right to get a better view of his jawline.

Helios’s heart sped up in his chest.

He reached up and clutched Draco’s wrist with his hand.  He could feel Draco’s pulse with his fingertips.

“I’m glad I haven’t had to curse you in months,” Draco confessed.  “It was getting—complicated.”

“I’m still the same person.”

“No,” Draco argued.  “I don’t think you are.  Harry Potter was a construct.  Helios Black was just hiding and waiting to come out.”

“Like a flower waiting to bloom?” Helios asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Draco breathed a little raggedly, leaning forward carefully.  “If you like.  Not that I believe there is a Helios flower.  Would it be orange or yellow like the sun?”

“Or a bright white like the light in the skies?” Helios wondered, looking directly up into the blue skies.

One of the twins—George, Helios thought, spilt popcorn on the floor.  “Damn in Gred,” the other said.  “You’re an absolute wreck.”

“I just can’t get that woman out of my head.”

“That Muggle woman?” Fred demanded.  “So what if she sent Harry away for the summer?  He misses the Quidditch match but it’s not like we wanted him here anyway.”

Helios glanced over at Draco who had gone preternaturally still, listening.

“I wanted him here,” George admitted glumly.  “You know I was more fond of him than Ron was, whatever the idiot claims.”

“That’s because you’re soft.  Harry,” he said in a loud, exaggerated tone, “didn’t share with us how he got past the aging line.  Friends don’t do that to other friends—”

“We didn’t share with him how we—”

“But he didn’t express an interest, did he?” Fred demanded, stuffing a hand into his popcorn and then filling his mouth with it.  Crunching, he continued, “Ron won’t even talk to the chit.”

The two twins looked over at Ron Weasley.

Helios and Draco, likewise, looked over at Ron.

He was sitting alone, not talking to any of his brothers or even his sister, and was staring glumly at his pumpkin juice.  He looked particularly pathetic.

“Well, he chased Hermione into the arms of Krum,” Fred agreed.  “All the fool him.”

“And he chased Harry into the arms of who knows who.”  George looked thoughtful, as if considering the possibilities.

Helios glanced over at Draco whose blue-grey eyes were staring directly into his.  Helios supposed they were only speaking the truth.  Gryffindor’s defection had chased him into the arms of the Blacks and straight into the arms of one Draco Malfoy, and he couldn’t seem to be sorry for it.

He wondered if Draco meant to chew him up and spit him out again, or if he meant to keep him and never let him go.  Helios didn’t know what his fate would be… but it didn’t lie in the past.  It lay in the future, in his future as Helios Black.  Here in this box his past and his future were merging, but they would each go their separate ways, and he had already made his choice.  He looked over at Draco.  Yes, his choice was made.