Arcturus Black's POV
Arcturus Black did not sleep that night.
The 12, Grimmauld Place lay steeped in silence, the sort that pressed against the ears and forced the mind inward. Even the ancient house seemed to sense the unrest of its master; the wards hummed softly, unsettled, like old sentinels whispering among themselves.
Arcturus sat alone in his study long after the fire had burned low, fingers steepled beneath his chin, eyes fixed on nothing at all.
His thoughts were buzzing—layer upon layer, memory folding over memory—and at the center of them all was a name he had not spoken aloud in years.
Caelum Salvius.
Arcturus let out a slow breath through his nose.
He had known of the man, of course. Everyone who mattered had. The Salvius name had carried weight long before Caelum himself had ever drawn breath, but Caelum had been something rarer than lineage.
He had been worthy of it.
In a time when most pureblood heirs mistook cruelty for strength and arrogance for authority, Caelum Salvius had embodied something older. Something purer. The kind of nobility that existed before blood politics had become an excuse for fear.
He did not exclude others for the sake of exclusion—but neither did he bend tradition until it snapped. He understood what many failed to grasp: that purity was not maintained by hatred, but by discipline. By choice. By restraint.
Balance.
That had been Caelum's defining trait.
Arcturus's fingers tightened slightly.
And Regulus had seen it.
That memory rose unbidden—Regulus, still young, still careful with his words, standing stiffly in this very room. He had spoken of Caelum Salvius only once, but Arcturus had remembered it because Regulus had sounded… different.
Not dutiful.Not fearful.But certain.
"Mr. Salvius listens," Regulus had said quietly."He corrects without humiliating.""He expects strength—but teaches how to earn it."
That alone had set Caelum apart from most patriarchs Arcturus had ever known.
And then there had been Evelyn P.
Even now, Arcturus did not know what to make of her.
The P family had always been… strange. Old, yes. Powerful, certainly. But deliberately veiled, their true lineage known only to a handful of families who understood when silence was wiser than curiosity.
Evelyn P had been spoken of in the same breath as Caelum in later years. Brilliant. Fiercely protective. A healer who could duel, a duelist who could heal.
And then—
The attack.
Arcturus's magic stirred uneasily as the memory rose, sharp as broken glass.
He remembered exactly where he had been when the news reached the old families.
Not through the Ministry. Not officially.
Through the family channels.
Whispers first.Then confirmations.Then panic.
The Salvius family.The P family.
Attacked.
Ancient lines—older than the Wizengamot, older than many of the laws governing wizarding Britain—struck in a single night.
The reaction had been immediate.
Light-aligned families moved without hesitation. Neutral families followed suit. Even those who despised Dumbledore's influence understood the implications. You did not allow ancient houses to be erased. If the Salvius and P families could fall, then anyone could.
The Dark-aligned families reacted too, though none admitted it aloud. For all their posturing, even they had understood what the loss of such houses would mean.
Ancient families were anchors.
They stabilized the magical world by their very existence.
By the time reinforcements arrived—
It was already over.
The location alone had stunned everyone.
Not ancestral land.Not a fortified estate.Not a warded stronghold brimming with centuries of layered magic.
But the outskirts of a muggle settlement.
Vulnerable.Exposed.Unprotected.
A calculated choice.
Arcturus could still picture the reports. The photographs. The testimonies.
If the battle had taken place on Salvius land, the Death Eaters would never have breached the outer wards. If it had been on P land, the ground itself would have turned against them.
But here?
Here, the families had fought without their strongest defenses.
And still—
The scene had been indescribable.
Three Occamies—enormous, serpentine creatures of unstable magic—coiled through the battlefield like unleashed gods. Their scales shimmered with lethal brilliance, their bodies bearing wounds that told of a fight fought to the last breath.
Six victims lay at the center.
Two muggles—caught in a war they had never known existed.Members of the Salvius family.And the patriarch of the P family.
Evelyn P was missing.
That absence had been noted immediately. Whispered about. Debated.
Dead?Taken?Escaped?
No one knew.
Around them lay the attackers.
Twenty-seven Death Eaters and followers.
Not simply killed.
Annihilated.
Some had been torn apart by the Occamies—limbs ripped away, bodies crushed and shredded as though they were nothing more than cloth dolls. Others bore the marks of spells so precise they spoke of years of disciplined training.
Some corpses were dried husks, magic ripped from them so thoroughly that the bodies barely registered as human anymore. Others… were fragments.
There had been no time for marks.
No time for theatrics.
No Dark Mark burned into the sky above that battlefield.
Only silence.
Only death.
That scene had done what no speech, no vote, no prophecy ever could.
It had made the war real.
From that moment on, the Ministry had stopped pretending restraint would save them.
Dumbledore had argued—of course he had. Spoken of mercy, of second chances, of refusing to become what they fought against.
But the Aurors who answered the next calls were not the same men and women who had hesitated before.
Many of them were recent graduates.
Young witches and wizards who had trained under Caelum Salvius.Who had learned healing charms from Evelyn P.Who had absorbed their lessons not just in spellwork, but in resolve.
They fought like men and women possessed.
Every raid became ruthless.Every skirmish decisive.
And then—
The Prewett twins.
Arcturus's jaw clenched.
Gideon and Fabian Prewett—loud, reckless, endlessly brave—cut down in an ambush. Their bodies marked deliberately, the Dark Mark burned into the sky as a taunt.
A message.
That had been the breaking point.
The Death Eater leadership had left immediately after. Sensible, calculating, aware of what they had unleashed.
They withdrew.
Quietly.
Quickly.
Like predators retreating after realizing the herd had teeth.
Only a handful of followers stayed behind.
The foolish ones.
The greedy ones.
The ones who mistook silence for safety.
They lingered to loot the bodies.
To laugh.
To brag.
That was when Arthur and Molly Weasley arrived.
Arthur Weasley did exactly what every report said he would.
He assessed the situation.
He stunned two of the remaining Death Eaters with clean, precise spells.
Non-lethal.
Controlled.
Almost methodical.
Arthur Weasley followed the law even when the law had failed his family.
Molly Weasley did not.
Witnesses struggled to describe it afterward.
Some said she moved too fast.
Others said she moved too calmly.
All agreed on one thing—
She did not scream.
She did not cry.
She did not hesitate.
Her face was empty.
Not rage.
Not hysteria.
Not madness.
Absence.
As if something essential had burned out of her, leaving only purpose behind.
She killed three Death Eaters.
Not with wild magic.
Not with spells cast in panic.
But with deliberate, efficient brutality.
Shield shattered.
Body bound.
Spell after spell layered without pause.
One was crushed against a stone wall so hard his ribs collapsed inward.
Another was flayed by cursefire that did not spread—but focused.
The third never finished begging.
There was no flourish.
No declaration.
No Dark Mark in response.
Only silence when it was done.
Arthur Weasley did not stop her.
No one did.
Later, in pureblood drawing rooms and Ministry offices alike, people spoke of it in hushed tones.
They spoke of how the twins' killers had been hunted down within weeks.
Of how Aurors suddenly stopped asking for surrender.
Of how even seasoned Death Eaters began refusing assignments that mentioned the Weasleys.
And somewhere along the way, an unspoken rule formed.
A law older than any written statute.
Laugh at Arthur Weasley if you wish.Mock his ideals.Call him a blood traitor.
But do not ever—
Ever—
Cross Molly Weasley.
Arcturus Black had never underestimated her again.
Even the Dark Lord had taken notice.
Intelligence reports confirmed it later—orders had gone out.
No overt actions.No displays.Lie low.
Wait for the rage to burn itself out.
He had even received a report that Bellatrix had been confined to LeStrange manor during that period by dark lord's orders.
Arcturus opened his eyes slowly, staring into the dying embers of the fire.
All of that—
All that blood, sacrifice, and consequence—
And now, sitting in a muggle orphanage, was Regulus's daughter.
A child born in secrecy. Hidden away. Raised without name or protection.
And beside her—
The son of Caelum Salvius and Evelyn P.
Arcturus felt something cold and sharp settle in his chest.
History was not repeating itself.
It was returning.
And this time, it had not come quietly.
This time, it had brought heirs.
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