Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

              Ducra does not have a phone, not because she can’t have one, not because the device won’t work in the Fields of All, but because she firmly believes phones are for pussies when a perfectly executed scry will work better.

Usually, Jason doesn’t care. It’s just a quirk of hers, makes keeping in contact with her less stressful because there’s nothing for the Bats to pick up on. When his hands are shaking so bad he keeps tipping over his fucking scrying bowl, though, when he can’t keep his goddamn crystal from wibbling all over the fucking globe, though –

Fifteenth time’s the charm. Right before he calls it quits and quite literally upends the fucking table, the liquid in his bowl shimmers and clears on a zoomed-in shot of Ducra’s bloodshot eye.

“Grandson.” She says dryly. She sounds delighted in a way that does not spell good news for him.

“You knew.” He hisses, and that earns him a cackle. He jerks, slams his knee into the underside of his table, and the connection breaks.

“God fucking motherfucker – “

She’s still laughing when he gets the connection back.

“Oh, dear, you didn’t think the All-Blades had not yet killed you because you were special, no?” She finally wheezes out, and Jason freezes.

That means that the letter is legit. Not some elaborate fuck up, or a plot – or, well, a fake plot – or a lie, or –

His panic morphs into disgust immediately, and she keeps on wheezing.

“I’m a fucking – no. Absolutely not. I don’t have a goddamn stick!”

“And you will not ever need one, dear. I did not let them teach Essence, I will not let them teach you. The ways of the All-Caste are far superior to what limits wizardkind has built into words and motion.” The amusement bleeds to steel in her voice. Jason makes a brief noise of dissatisfaction – he doesn’t care about education, a wand would be a liability and everything Ducra and the rest of the All-Caste has taught him infinitely superior anyway, but –

“Do you know who I’m supposed to be, then? Who they think I am, I mean?”

“Not the foggiest, dear.” She says cheerfully. And that – soothes him.

He’s been used for his parentage before. For his love of Catherine, his hatred of Willis, his hope for Sheila, his adoration of Bruce. Talia is as vaguely parental as she is capable of becoming, and she’s weaponized his adoption time and time again – against himself, against Dick, against whatever Bat she’s interacting with. He knows, with a kind of bone-deep certainty, that Ducra absolutely would not do the same – that she hasn’t, that his bloodline has been a nice surprise rather than the sole focus of his initiation. But that doesn’t ever help against his anxiety, his paranoia.

“I got a letter from a fucking owl this morning from some goblin-run bank in London. Said my presence is required to protect my bio dad’s estate against a false claimant. I got the impression they never would have contacted me except whoever is making the claim has royally pissed them off.” He adds, because Gotham’s upper crust has taught him weaponized civility and passive aggression more thoroughly than anyone else. He’d been quick to spot the thinly-veiled contempt, the derision, the sharp undertone of this is not for your benefit.

Ducra looks gleeful.

“I do so adore goblins. Give me but a moment, grandson. I will have Essence bring you home.”

“I’ve got a whole goddamn criminal empire here, Ducra! I can’t just up and – “

“Five minutes!” She sings, and snaps the connection herself.

Jason does, in the end, flip the damn table over in his haste to pack.

X

              He’s still furiously texting his people when Essence grabs his shoulder and pulls him into the Fields of All. He doesn’t look up. His people are competent, but he’s got a damn patrol schedule and he can’t believe he has to call in favor with the Replacement to cover his shit, and the general inconvenience of being dragged away without time to prepare grates on him.

“Mother told me what happened.”

“Yeah?”

“I always knew you were pathetic.” Essence announces as brightly as she’s capable of. He makes a half-hearted effort to jab her in the side, but she sweeps away in a blur of mist and shadows. Just as quick as her daughter, Ducra is there at his side rummaging through the bag hanging at his hip. He doesn’t know how she knows where the letter is, but she lets out a little victory cry when she finds it.

He watches her freeze halfway through the letter. When she finally looks up at him, she’s squinting like she does when he fucks something up.

“I did nothing.”

“Hold, grandson. I am debating.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“I find myself in a dilemma, dear. Should I tell you all I know, you will kill some people I suspect you will need alive to…handle this.”

“You’re talking like there’s a situation.”

“There is a very big situation.” Essence says sourly, and Jason stares between the two of them for a moment before mentally giving up.

“Alright. Fine. When this goes south I am holding you two responsible.”

If it were up to him – he won’t ignore the letter either. It’s – he has enough terrible parents, thanks, and has no interest in collecting more even if this one is dead. But it strikes too close to him, grates on all his triggers, and he’d go just to make a nuisance of whoever required his presence in the first place.

Essence makes the executive decision that they need tea for this discussion, and leaves Jason and Ducra to meander their way up to the kitchens. It’s a bit of a walk, but it’s – nice.

It is…nice to be home. To be home in a home that actually, genuinely, wants him. Essence bitches and snipes at him but never with intent to harm, and Ducra is a terrifying nightmare of a taskmistress even on good days but is always pleased to see him, and the Fields themselves hum beneath his feet.

It’s nice to be welcome.

“No new recruits?” He asks. Ducra has folded her arms around his, and squeezes gently.

“Not yet. That we will have to open our gates to mortals is an inevitability, now, but it is not one I will allow without safeguards. You are an exemplary member of the All-Caste, dear, but I do not think many others would stay true to our teachings if they left our halls so often or so permanently.”

He squeezes her arm back, and swallows past the sudden lump in his throat.

“You need to devise a test, then?”

“A trial, yes. And a plan to…handle those who change their minds. I will not give up our secrets only to watch them turn their backs on us, but to demand such loyalty and devotion prior to training would be a mistake.” Ducra’s voice is soft, thoughtful. She’s always been ethical, for the leader of a technical cult, and Jason admires that about her.

His plan – to take Gotham by storm, to grip the underworld by its throat and bend it to his will – had been born of her attitudes towards responsibility and power. He hopes he’s managed to live up to a fraction of her dedication.

Essence has pulled out all the stops, which is unusual for her. She’s buttering him up, Jason decides, as he looks at neat clay cups filled with steaming liquid and a tray of snacks Essence personally loathes but Jason has always been fond of. She refuses to look at him while he helps Ducra down, and when he sits carefully down at the only remaining spot at the table.

“This letter is…very interesting in its own right. I believe it best I start there.” Ducra finally says, producing said letter out of thin air. Jason just sort of blinks at her. She’s still all smiles, which is disconcerting in the same way a too-quiet child is. She’s up to something.

“The goblins, I presume?”

“Yes, dear. They’ve grown resentful these past years. When wizards removed themselves from the world, they did so in a manner so cruel and callous that goblinkind thought it had found an equal. Wizards ripped themselves from the hearts and souls of every being alive – and goblinkind went with them for the brutality that promised in the future.”

“The Tribes haven’t done anything really….undeservedly malicious. That I am aware of.” Jason points out. His own knowledge is limited – awareness of wizardkind does not mean he wants anything to do with them, and his reconnaissance standards are necessarily lower for supernatural things. Most are more inclined to introduce themselves the more one knows of them, and Gotham has enough supernatural problems to willingly invite more.

 “Wizardkind’s atrocities have necessarily been self-inflicted in their isolation. Or – at least those that are beholden to the Statute. Not every country agreed with it at the time, as you well know. The Tribes are an example of one of the most successful approaches to secrecy in the modern era, and they do so only out of spite.”

“Small-scale. And goblins don’t like that?”

“They’ve grown bitter. They expected violence untold, and instead they’re lucky to see one Dark Lord or Lady a generation.”

“Dark Lord a la fantasy books?”

“In Britain, yes. Madmen. Some are true revolutionaries, most are simply fools with more power than sense.”

“So the goblins fuck with wizards in revenge.”

“They run the wizarding economy. Keeps them on their toes, for the most part.” Ducra sounds almost fond. Essence shudders so hard she nearly spills her tea. Jason raises an eyebrow at her, and takes a dainty sip of his own. As if Essence doesn’t know her own mother’s penchant for cruelty – Ducra trained her first, after all.

“They only would have informed you of your inheritance if the benefit to you was vastly outweighed by the harm to another. Given the urgency of this letter, likely another with whom they have…”

“Beef.” Essence supplies. Jason chokes. Her grin is all teeth, even as Ducra nods.

“Yes. I cannot tell you why, or who has earned their ire. What I can, and will do, is explain to you a little of Britain’s current…situation.”

In other words, what he’ll be walking into. He nods, and she smiles, and then takes a cookie. He and Essence sit in awkward silence while she dunks and eats the damn thing one tiny bite at a time.

He might’ve missed his adoptive grandmother and sometimes-sister, but he did not miss this. She’s old, and they’re both isolated, and Ducra gets her jollies by being irritating in the most mundane and odd ways possible.

Essence breaks first.

“You’re a Black.”

“I can read the asshole’s name.” Jason says dryly.

Regulus Black. Deceased months prior to Jason’s birth. According to the goblins, Jason is his only son.

“Family Black has a history with the All-Caste, though I doubt any of them are alive to remember it.” Ducra says severely, as if she wasn’t the one playing games, and Jason overlooks her attitude in his surprise.

“Were they members?”

“At one time they sided with the Untitled in a very poorly thought-out power grab.”

“They nearly named it.” Essence hisses, the dark flaring void with her ire. Jason feels absolute ice run down his spine, but – but Ducra had already said she’d had no idea, and –

And he has to believe that. Cannot live if he doesn’t.

“I want you to go and claim every fucking scrap of this inheritance, Jason. Take everything from the Blacks like they nearly took everything from the world.”

“I find it hard to believe neither of you have gotten revenge on them yet.” Jason says, but he’s already nodding and Essence is already relaxing.

“Oh, we did. Cursed their blood with madness. Sorry, dear, although it worked out quite nicely with your Lazarus exposure.”

Ducra pats his hand as she speaks.

“I find myself thinking it won’t be so easy as walking in there and grabbing shit and leaving.” Jason says after a moment, after resolutely deciding to ignore whatever the fuck that means. Essence snorts.

“Of course not. They’re in the middle of another genocidal war.”

“Well, the war hasn’t quite restarted yet. But one of their Dark Lords has resurrected himself, yes.”

“And what does this asshole want?”

“Wholesale extinction of wizards born to families not purely magical, and total dominion over non-magical peoples.” Ducra says promptly.

“That’s…me, isn’t it?”

“Let us check.” Ducra says brightly, and then stabs him.

X

So.

Turns out it isn’t.

Which is somehow worse.

Jason’s spent his entire life at the bottom of whatever given hierarchy he’s in. He was a street rat, gutter trash, alley brat in Gotham even after Bruce took him in. He wasn’t white, wasn’t rich, and wasn’t educated, and then he was dead. While under Talia’s care, he was afforded no respect and no leniency by any of the League for the crime of daring to capture Talia’s attention. And – less insidiously – he is the least experienced, least powerful, least educated of the last bastion of All-Caste.

He's the black sheep of the Bats, the upstart bitch of Gotham’s underworld.

And in some magic country-within-a-country in fucking Britain of all places, he’s apparently the most privileged motherfucker to ever privilege.

“Sheila was a witch.” He repeats. This is not the third, or the fourth, or the fifth time he’s said this. Essence, in a surprising show of care, has not yet stopped sympathetically rubbing his back. She’s terrible at it.

It makes sense, is the thing.

Who the fuck would choose to work with the Joker, let alone for as long as Sheila had? So closely that she’d spoken to him face to face on more than one occasion, if her familiarity when handing him over to his death was anything to judge.

And – she hadn’t been afraid while she watched. While she smoked. She’d never once flinched, never once cast an uneasy look at the Joker. When he’d struck her, it had been from behind.

She’d thought her magic would protect her.

“An outcast. Disowned so completely that her former family denies you, too.” Ducra murmurs, attention still focused on the spell she’s casting over Jason’s still-bleeding hand. The needle she’d used to puncture his flesh floats between long loops of crimson, flashing images and lights Jason has no hope of interpreting. She blinks, and her concentration snaps, and Jason has to endure the most uncomfortable moment of his entire life as his blood snakes back into his body. It isn’t painful, but more like – how having a living gummy worm crawl its way under your skin would feel. He does not enjoy it.

“Anything of note?”

“No, dear. She was a follower of that Dark Lord, but so was Family Black. I suppose her family did not agree with her.”

“I don’t want to know anything more.” He whispers, and Ducra nods. Essence moves to bandage his hand, and the needle vanishes, and Ducra’s hand is a warm and solid weight on his shoulder.

X

He packs the next morning. Dresses in his leathers and armor, though he leaves his helmet behind. Essence shrugs when he asks about his guns, so he straps them on, and Talia’s knife, and half a dozen other weapons, and then shoulders his backpack.

It’s easier to get to Britain undetected from the Fields of All than it would be Gotham. He doesn’t have to dodge the Bats, or the Birds, or the entire goddamn Justice League in trying to leave the country. European metas are more isolated than their American counterparts, don’t talk as much amongst each other, and Jason’s not a known entity in most circles.

Ducra had offered to make Essence ferry him around, but he’s unsure whether Britain’s magicals would sense her power, and he doesn’t want to put a target on her back while some magic Hitler motherfucker is running around. Essence calls him a bitch, but looks relieved.

He follows Ducra’s instructions – there had been none in his letter – to a plane, and then a train, and then a cab, and finds himself in front of a grimy pub that reeks of magic so strongly he can’t help but pull a face.

The barman nods at him when he walks in, furrows his brow, but looks away quickly. Most of the pub’s patrons ignore him. A few shoot him concerned looks; others sneer. He’s the only one in the pub not wearing old-fashioned robes. No one, however, approaches him, and he keeps his gait loose and relaxed as he strides into the back of the pub, out a door, and into a grimy, weedy little courtyard.

He doesn’t have a wand, but there’s already a plump woman near drowning beneath a set of green robes and a wide-brimmed witches hat tapping away at the wizarding world’s secret entrance, and he slips in neatly behind her before it can close.

Gringotts is as Ducra had described, almost mockingly roman in architecture and built at angles just off enough to be nauseating. Jason contemplates who the fuck thought this design in particular was a winner, and for a moment wants desperately to ask them why, but he’s already drawing the attention of two fully armored-and-armed guards standing sentinel on either side of an ornate door, so he forces himself to keep moving.

The All-Blades hum when he steps past Gringotts’ threshold, and his fingertips tingle. Wards like walls, like mountains, like a thousand feet of solid stone, drag across his every sense like sandpaper. Before his claustrophobia can surge up his throat and choke him, however, the sensation passes.

He’d known he’d feel something, but Jason’s –

Gotham’s magic is a hell of a lot different than this, likely an entirely different type, and that is the only magic beyond the All-Caste’s that he has allowed himself to experience. His contacts with the Tribes are remote, messages passed third-or-fourth hand.

But Gotham’s magic is so often death magic, and the All-Caste is too a reflection of that balance – the Untitled devour souls whole, and only Death Herself has the right to take a soul so permanently –

And wizards don’t like that type of magic. Goblins wouldn’t either, not if they’d bound themselves however unintentionally to wizarding rules.

Jason forces his jaw to unclench, and strides to the nearest open teller. The goblin in question is already watching him, beady eyes narrowed and glittering sharply in Gringotts’ bright lights.

“Business?” The goblin snaps, and Jason pulls his letter out, flashing the seal towards the goblin.

“A will reading of some sort. I was forewarned there would be complications and advised to come early.” He keeps his words blunt, but his tone measured. Ducra had warned him not to disrespect the goblins more empathetically than she ever had before, and S’aru’s only parting advice had been to piss the goblins off, so.

The goblin smiles briefly, or something in close approximation of one. Its teeth are long, needle-sharp, and glistening.

“Do you have anything to declare, Mr. Todd?”

He has fuck all idea what the hell he’s supposed to say to that.

“I am armed. I am unable to surrender the entirety of my arsenal.”

“Unable or unwilling?” It hisses. Jason tries not to be offended.

“If you want to throw down with Death over the metaphysical properties of my soul you’re more than welcome to get your ass beat.” He says instead. It’s a taunt, a threat, a warning all in one. Wizards don’t like death magic but Jason does, Jason is, and Jason cannot and will not change what he is for some asshole’s inheritance.

 Much like how the goblins have refused to bend themselves to wizard rule.

“A demonstration, then.” The goblin huffs, and taps its claws impatiently on the stone desk between them.

“A private one, yes.” Jason answers, and the goblin growls. It’s an odd sound, like rock rumbling and lava seething just past the edge of his hearing, but it pushes away from the desk and hops down. That draws the attention of its fellow tellers, and Jason feels their eyes like blades against the nape of his neck as he hurries after his teller, which has hurtled itself down a broad hallway like a goddamned cannonball. Jason has to jog to catch up.

The fucker tries to lose him for about five minutes before apparently deciding Jason’s too hard to shake and comes to a dead stop in front of a seemingly random door. It raises an eyebrow at him when he doesn’t immediately go in.

Essence, he decides, is going to owe him so fucking much for this.

X

The room contains a large, curved desk covered in neat piles of paperwork, two precise arrays of painfully uncomfortable metal chairs, and an absolutely ancient raisin of a goblin.

“Jason Todd, I presume?” It asks. Jason can see some kind of facial movement happening, but there are too may wrinkles to parse anything else out. He can’t see the goblin’s eyes, can barley make out a nose, and only knows where its mouth is because of the dark slash against its pale skin.

“I am.”

“Your demonstration, if you will. Be warned that we will not permit any threat against our people in our own halls.” The goblin says serenely, as only one with the power to see its threat through could, and Jason nods carefully before reaching into himself and pulling.

Typically, the All-Blades kill their wielders young. Ducra had once told him he’d be lucky to get a hundred battles with the Untitled out of his soul. But he is not entirely a mortal – not anymore, not ever- and wizards have magic, magic which is self-replenishing in a way a soul is not.

The All-Blades will eat his magic first, and his soul second. Jason has never wielded them for a long enough period of time to burn through his magical reserves entirely, although he hopes to push himself to that point just to get an estimate after all this is said and done.

The All-Blades flare to life in his hands, and the wards set so deep into Gringott’s bones they rattle beneath Jason’s feet flinch. The goblin goes bloodless.

“Ducra sends her regards.” He says quietly, and the All-Blades flicker back out of existence. He can’t read the expression on this ancient goblin’s face, but he can all but feel its distate.

“Meddling bitch.” It mutters, and he snorts.

“That’s my grandmother you’re speaking of.” He warns, and the goblin grumbles but nods its head in what Jason assumes is an apology.

“I suppose we must get to the point, as it were.” It sighs, and with a flick of its fingers the stacks of paperwork and scrolls arranged in front of it slide to the far ends of the desk, no less neat for their movement. It produces a scroll of odd-looking parchment, which it unrolls and weighs down with ink pots. The paper – parchment – looks laminated, oily and rainbow and almost crunchy as it is smoothed out.

“An identity check, Mr. Todd. Magic does not lie, but there are legalities to consider.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Merely bleed.”

“Is this a straight DNA test, or is this magical?”

“Magical, of course.” The goblin scoffs, and Jason’s not entirely sure it even knows what a DNA test is, but if it isn’t measuring proper blood his results won’t be skewed – thank you, Talia, and the stupid fucking Lazarus pit – so Jason merely draws Talia’s dagger and cuts himself on the arm. The parchment flares with magic, and Jason looks away, busies himself with cleaning and putting the blade away and slapping a bandage around the wound. He could watch the test adjust, do whatever it is it’s supposed to do, but Jason’s fairly certain that’d make him nauseous.

“Jason Peter Todd, son of Sheila Haywood and Regulus Black, son of Catherine and Willis Todd, son of Talia al Ghul and Bruce Wayne. Grandson to Ducra of the Fields of All.” The goblin drawls, as if none of those names mean anything to it, and maybe they don’t – except for Ducra’s – but Jason still flinches.

“You’re sure this Black guy’s dead? Permanently dead, I mean?”

“In what world is death not permanent?” The goblin asks derisively, and Jason raises an eyebrow, glances down at the parchment towards where his date of birth is listed, and taps the date of death sat beside it. Again, the goblin goes bloodless. It snaps its fingers, and the whole paper goes up in flames. Jason yanks his hand back and scowls, but he doesn’t protest – he doesn’t want evidence of his resurrection lying around.

“Why do you want me here, anyway?”

“Your uncle was recently slain.”

“I had an uncle?”

“One Sirius Black, former Auror and the only soul to have ever escaped Azkaban unaided.”

“Azkaban’s the…prison, right?” Jason asks. Stay the fuck away, had been Essence’s command, and Jason didn’t intend to disobey her but the thought of anyone, let alone some blood relative of his, being forced into a place that scared Essence –

“It is. Your uncle was imprisoned without trial, so his imprisonment never had any bearing on his property rights and so on or such forth. He left a will splitting Family Black’s fortune among a number of his…friends.”

“And he didn’t have the right to do any of that, because I exist.” Jason guesses. The goblin sneers.

“The Family Black has had succession fights in the past. One of your ancestors added a stipulation to the family charter that only the proper heir may sign off on familial property bequeathments, among other things. Although your uncle was the elder brother, he was ritualistically cut from the family during his school days. Your father, and by extension you, are the proper heirs to Family Black and its holdings.”

“But him using the properties – that wasn’t an issue?”

“Your ancestors saw a difference between use while living and discarding while dead.” The goblins says coolly.

“I’ll want copies of the charter. And any relevant statements, contracts, accountings, inventories. Ducra was insistent that I get up-to-date records.” Jason smiles insincerely as he speaks. He’s not sure if it’s his attitude, his request, or his use of Ducra’s name that pisses the goblin off, but the thing is absolutely livid.

“We would expect nothing less from one of the All.” It hisses, and flicks a hand towards a particularly intimidating stack of parchment, scrolls, and papers.

He drags one of the uncomfortable chairs up to the edge of the desk, ignoring the screech of metal on stone, and takes a seat. The goblin glares at him while he selects a scroll at random and unrolls it, but says nothing.

Jason pretends to read for a minute, and then two, and then three before the goblin growls, shakes its head, and summons a scroll of its own. Only once it has become absorbed in its work does Jason turn his attention to the scroll in front of him.

Might as well be productive while he waits for this will reading to start.

X

He decides he hates goblins after the second scroll.

All the information is there. Everything he could possibly want to know, right there in front of him. But it is hidden behind archaic, mind-numbingly boring language. Behind misdirections and false starts, clever turns of phrases and an infuriating lack of labels all in a tiny ass font he can barely read. Because goblins are fuckwits.

Jason’s been scribbling notes and annotations with a non-magical pen for nearly two hours when the door finally swings open and admits a stream of people.

He has a rough idea of how rich Family Black is – very – and how extensive their resources are – very – and a slimy feeling after reading his ancestors’ charter that won’t rub off. He’s still a legitimate heir, even without a wand, because he’s magical. Because he hasn’t married a non-pureblood, or sired a non-pureblood child.

He can see why Essence was so excited at the thought of robbing these assholes.

He puts his scroll down, his pen away, and rubs at his eyes tiredly before taking in the newcomers.

A tall, nervous man in a frayed robe with golden eyes dulled with grief is gingerly sitting in the row of chairs farthest from the desk, as close to the back of the room as he can get. But his head is tilted, his teeth just a little too sharp, and his nostrils are flaring even as the man doesn’t seem to catch it. A creature of some sort.

A stately, severe woman and a soft, rotund man are next. On their heels comes a young woman around Jason’s age with bubblegum pink hair, who takes a seat next to the creature while her two elder companions march for the front row.

Next is a frankly unpleasant woman with a literal goddamn vulture on her hat, her nose turned up even as she drags a boy in that awkward phase of teenagerhood where he’s still technically a child but starting to fill out behind her. The kid looks uncomfortable, pained, and flinches when the elderly woman at his side yanks on his arm.

Next comes another tall woman, this one wrinkled and stern in a way that is distinctly more kind than either of those that had come before. Her sharp gaze lands on him, and Jason meets her eyes steadily until she blinks and looks away. She hesitates a moment, and then takes a seat beside the boy, nodding towards the unpleasant woman.

Then comes another woman, dressed in perfectly tailored robes with her hair in a simple, elegant bun, and Jason has to blink because her hair is white as snow with a streak of black in it, polar opposite of his own, and she seems to sense his stare because she looks up, expression carved from marble, and then her eyes widen and she pales at the sight of him. She sits down heavily in the nearest chair, and does not look away. Jason breaks eye contact first.

Next comes an equally tall old man whose robes are quite literally twinkling; there’s something artificial about his grandfatherly expression and Jason pegs him as dangerous immediately. He almost doesn’t spot Jason, and tenses visibly when he does, some of his dotty aura dropping away. When he sits beside the couple, he’s more serious.

And then, finally, a boy.

Jason pegs him for a street kid, with the sharp eyes and hollow cheeks. But he moves less like Jason does, or did at that age, and more like – more like Replacement. Less used to running, more used to hiding, being quiet. He’s dressed in non-magical clothes, dirty, stained clothes five sizes too big for him, and his glasses are taped thickly around the bridge. His gaze flickers nervously around, takes Jason in just as he takes in the other adults, and he chooses to sit behind the other boy – between the other boy and the creature. Jason sees the kid’s fingers curl in the back of the other boy’s shirt, and both relax a little.

The door slams shut with a thunderous boom. Magically enhanced, Jason would assume.

“Finally.” The elderly goblin growls, and Jason has to bite back an immediate laugh at the goblin’s tone – equal parts gleeful and irate.

“We are ready when you are.” The fake-grandfather demurs, smiling just a touch too broadly to be sincere. The goblin shoots him a look of such loathing that, right then and there, Jason knows that he is their target.

The ceremony is nonexistent. The goblin produces two orbs, which immediately has alarm bells ringing in Jason’s head but doesn’t seem to bother any of the others gathered – except for the boys, who note his tension and tense in turn.

An ornately carved stone basin is produced – a pensieve the goblin calls it – and without any further ado, the goblin tosses one of the orbs in. It sinks into the liquid within without so much as a splash.

There’s a pregnant pause, and then whisps of white light float up off the surface in the basin and coalesce into a face. The whole damn room gasps.

Not his uncle, then. Probably his father.

Regulus Black is young. Jason has a sinking feeling that he is now older than his father ever was. The boy before him is a teenager with a sharp, vicious slant to his mouth and hard eyes, telltale scars of warfare and soldiery in every out-of-place hair and nicked eyebrow. Another child soldier, then.

“This is the last will and testament of I, Regulus Arcturus Black, sole heir to the Family Black. I have filed the appropriate paperwork with the goblins, so that by the time any I call friend or foe hear this there is naught they can do to stop me. Kreacher.”

And there is a pop. And then standing right before the specter of Black is a wrinkled, gnarled creature with tears glistening in its eyes. Jason doesn’t recognize the species, but it croaks out a heartfelt master and raises one hand as if to touch the image. It stings, to see such adoration and grief and watch as the image of Regulus Black does not so much as look down at it.

“I am sorry.” Regulus Black says softly, at sharp odds with his business-like tone prior, and again the whole damn room gasps. Bewildered, disbelieving.

“Kreacher forgives Master. Kreacher will always forgive Master.” The thing – Kreacher – whispers.

“I hereby release you from every oath I have ever bound you to, every promise I have ever begged from you. You are free to do as you see fit, for the betterment of Family Black. I wish it had not necessary to prevent you from doing so until now.”

Kreacher begins sobbing, and Jason’s skin crawls because he can see the scars on the creature, and its sobs are soft, quiet things, hardly audible.

“To my parents, I hereby withdraw the support of Family Black from you both. You will not benefit from a single knut or a single charm for the rest of your pathetic lives. I hope you die half as quickly as you want.”

Abusive, then. And dead already. He has to wonder if Regulus had anything to do with that.

“To my brother, Sirius, you are a fool and a moron and if you are not there to see this I will curse your entire Merlin-damned line. For the remainder of your life you will enjoy the support of the Family Black. I have left a vault in your name, your true name, for your eyes only. I am not sorry that I cannot do more. I hope you make this trouble worth it.”

Jason feels lost. He has no context for these people, these relationships. Regulus sounds both resentful and loving of his brother, and that has never been Jason’s experiences with his – with the other Bats.

He’d held Dick in a kind of bemused, cynical regard. Had known Dick’s anger hadn’t been directed at him, but hadn’t thought very highly of how often Jason had had to deal with the strain of it. They hadn’t been close enough to be brothers before he died, and Dick’s near-pathological need to pretend they had been, were, are now makes his skin crawl.

The less said about Damian the better and Tim – his relationship with his Replacement is a hot fucking mess, but it isn’t so…at least on his end, it isn’t so sour.

“To my cousins and the man who calls himself my Lord, fuck you. Andromeda for abandoning us when she knew, Bellatrix for her everything, and Narcissa for turning a blind eye. If you will not protect your son, Cissa, I will do it for you. And Voldemort – whether I am the end or the beginning, I will see you burn for what you have done.”

Another round of gasps. Jason swallows hard.

Figures the dead one is the only halfway decent one of the lot.

“All else will be held in trust upon my death. Family Black will not open its doors for any but my son or any of his children, should it take that long. I name him, he whose name I do not know, heir and lord of the Family Black from the moment I breathe my last. I regret that I have no further words for him. I am not sorry that I am dead, for my death will ensure he may yet live. I am sorry that I have not known him, but I would not have known him had I lived either. Treat Kreacher well.”

And Regulus Black’s face winks out of existence. The sudden absence leaves Jason seeing spots; by the time he clears his vision, Kreacher is standing in front of him. The rest of the room is chaos, loud and noisy, but Jason cannot concentrate on that with the being right there.

“You are Master’s son.” It croaks. Jason almost shrugs, barely restrains himself from doing so.

“I took a test that said so.” He says softly. It shakes its head.

“Kreacher can feel you now, young Master.” It says, and takes one of his hands in its own. It stands to the side of his chair, content to hold him, and Jason holds himself still as the being’s magic zings across his own, lightning and –

It is old, whatever it is. Ancient, and powerful, and half-mad, but calm and as nervous as it makes him Jason can’t –

“What do you mean now?” He asks, and watery eyes blink up at him.

“Kreacher promised not to look. To let young Master hide, until Master gave him leave to look. Kreacher wants to be angry with Master for that.” It says, and Jason realizes in an instant that he is feeling its lifeforce, that it is feeling his, that –

That Kreacher is feeling every hurt, every death, everything Jason has suffered, and –

“It was not, and is not, your fault.” He says sharply. It – he – starts a little, and narrows his eyes.

“Kreacher must protect Family Black. Kreacher could not, but now Kreacher will.”

This is going to go terribly, Jason realizes, holy shit. He should have ignored the letter.

Gotham’s too fucking cynical to get all…worship-y with him. Crime Alley likes him because he’s one of theirs and generally far better than the alternatives, but they aren’t –

There’s honest devotion in Kreacher’s eyes, Kreacher’s voice, both towards Jason and towards the Family Black more broadly. And Jason has just been named the lord and heir, and he has no intention of –

Shit.

He tears his gaze away from Kreacher, and finds the tired creature and the boys looking at him steadily, uncertain and suspicious in equal measure.

“What does this mean for my uncle’s will? Nothing he bequeathed will apply, right?”

“Young Master controls all of Family Black but for what Master gave to the filthy mutt. If the filthy mutt tried to give away what was not his, it is void.”

The sound of a minor explosion nearly has Jason jumping out of his chair, and if it weren’t for Kreacher’s hold on him, he’d have flinched. As it is, that old lightning magic intensifies, and Jason finds himself sitting as still and careful as before as the entire room descends into silence, heads swiveling to stare at the fake-grandfather. He’s got one arm raised, a wand in hand still emitting a stray purple spark. The goblin looks unimpressed.

The old asshole doesn’t look pleased, though. He’s eyeing Jason, and Kreacher, and Jason is sort of fascinated to see the realization – and anger, and horror, and rage – flicker through his eyes before he smiles genially.

“I’m sure the stranger in our midst has some answers for us.” The old man says, tone just a little too sharp. The couple turns to look at Jason, the woman pale and horrified. The woman whose hair almost matches Jason looks devastated behind them.

“You will sit and be quiet! The next of you to dare show such disrespect in Gringotts’ halls will be removed and any applicable inheritance voided!” The goblin barks, and the old man sits down quickly after that; the rest of them go slower.

Jason ignores the stares, and watches the goblin fish out the first orb, and throw in the second.

Jason hadn’t seen himself in his father’s face, and he doesn’t see himself in his uncle’s. But he does see his uncle’s in the women in the audience, even in the boy who had come alone, traces around the eyes and cheekbones. It’s hard – his uncle’s face is hollowed and scarred, but there are – hints.

“I’m not one for speeches, or for formalities.” Sirius Black’s voice is raspy, hoarse. He looks tired.

“I don’t know how much control over the Black estate I have. I wrote something down, per Albus’ request, and gave it to the goblins, but I have doubts it’ll pass muster. I only have one thing of real value.” The last is said with such conviction, and the soft, wry little smile that touches Sirius Black’s face softens all of his edges, gives him years back.

“James and Lily named me Harry’s godfather, and willed his custody to me. Harry might’ve been taken from me, but I am still his legal guardian. No trial, no severing of rights.”

The frayed man with golden eyes lurches forward in his seat and puts a hand on the boy in front of him’s shoulders. The kid’s frozen, crying silent and unmoving, eyes wide and refusing to blink as he stares at his – godfather?

“Harry, pup, I am so sorry. If you’re watching this, if – it isn’t your fault. It wasn’t, it never was. I’ve been feeling Her coming in my bones, pup. She’s close. And I’m not scared of dying. I am fucking terrified of leaving you alone, though.” Grief gives Sirius Black twice the years his smile removed. He looks heartbroken, and Jason’s putting together pieces and he does not like the picture he’s getting.

“Kreacher – you did your job perfectly, you fucking nightmare. Wasn’t your fault I found out. Reg started writing a note at some point, and I…I cannot fucking believe I have to say this, but thank you, you piece of shit. I hope you die painfully and that I never have to see you again, but you never once failed Reg and I appreciate what you did for him.” There’s no enthusiasm in Black’s voice, which is. Frankly more offensive than if he wouldn’t have thanked Kreacher at all, Jason thinks.

“I can’t give custody of you to Moony, pup, because the Ministry’s – what’d Hermione call it? Species-ist. Y’know. But I can make damn sure you never have to go back to fucking Petunia’s again.”

Aw, hell.

“I, Sirius Orion Black the Third, do so pass custody of my godson Harry James Potter to my nephew, wherever he may be, Jason Peter Todd. Sorry to scare the fuck out of you, kid, and I’m sorry I never got to meet you. You want my advice, keep Harry and burn the rest to the ground.”

Sirius Black winks, and then his image too disappears. The goblin leaves in such practices steps that it almost doesn’t look like he’s hauling ass.

And then the screaming starts.

X

Jason watches the outrage for a heartbeat, and then two, and then stands up and walks right over to Harry. The kid’s staring at him with huge eyes, but scoots over a seat. He still keeps one hand fisted in the other boy’s shirt – who is staring at Jason warily – and the creature – Moony? – doesn’t let go of Harry’s shoulder, but he does make room for Jason and that’s all Jason can really ask for.

“We cousins or something?” Jason asks. The kid’s eyes get even bigger.

“Yeah. His grandmother was a Black. Your great aunt.” It’s the other kid who speaks. Jason nods slowly, and tries not to fidget. Kreacher is still holding his hand, mashed up against his side, and Kreacher’s magic is still – adjusting? Scanning, maybe, or protecting him?

“My name is Jason. You’re Harry?”

“Y- yeah. And this is Neville.”

Neville, which is a frankly unfortunate name, who is twisted fully around in his seat to face him given that the woman he was with is up and shouting and gesturing along with the rest of the adults. Except for Moony. And except for the woman whose hair almost matches Jason’s, who is still staring at him bleakly.

“Nice to meet you two. Petunia the one who did all that to you?” Jason asks, flicking his fingers towards Harry’s general – everything. Harry tenses, snaps right out of his unease and surprise into well-worn suspicion and wariness.

“No.”

“Yes.” Neville snaps. Harry glares at him, but doesn’t try to correct him, which is good because fuck is the kid a bad liar.

Cousin. He can handle a cousin. That’s what Essence calls herself, and they’re fine.

He’ll have to file the legal paperwork on the non-magical side of things, which means legally coming back to life. But he has a new last name to use now, so – that’s at least. Useful. Nice seems too positive a word for it.

“How old are you? Both of you, I mean?”

“Fifteen. We’ll be sixteen at the end of July.” Neville again answers him.

“Why do you want to know about Neville?” Harry asks, sharp.

Because whoever the fuck he’s with is abusing him too is not the tactful thing to say here.

“Because while they’re still distracted, I need you two to give me a rundown on what the fuck I just walked into. I have never interacted with British wizards, haven’t been in London for years, and all I know is there’s some genocidal maniac running around that my bio dad’s family apparently really fucking liked.”

And then he has to wait, because these are kids, his kind of kids. They haven’t grown up on Gotham’s streets but they are good soldiers in the same way he was at that age, when he was just a year younger.

He can’t make them safe if they don’t believe him, if they don’t reach back and take his offered hand.

“You don’t know about the Death Eaters?”

“Death Ea – what kind of bullshit name is that Jesus fucking Christ.”

No wonder Ducra had been so hesitant to tell him everything going on down here, he thinks, and then a goddamn realization strikes him, and he lets out a sharp hiss.

“Their leader – did he resurrect himself? Or – like specifically, as far as you know, how’d he come back?”

“He never died in the first place. Made himself immortal.” Harry whispers, eyeing him oddly, hands clenching into fists in his lap.

“He murdered Harry’s parents on Halloween years ago. They were killed. Harry lived, but V-Voldemort was defeated. Except he kept coming back. First year he possessed our defense teacher. Second year a teenage version of him tried to possess students with a diary. Fourth year he kidnapped Harry and – and Cedric, and got himself a new body. And a couple weeks ago he attacked the Ministry.”

Jason stares, and then scrubs his free hand over his face.

He’s gotta kill the fucker. And kidnap these kids, but, like, he has to kill the fucker too. And it’s not going to be hard, but –

He was hoping this would be quick. In and out.

“First year – you mean at school?”

“Hogwarts. Magical kids get to go at eleven.” Harry supplies.

“And your teachers just. Let the motherfucker fuck around you all?”

The boys share a dark look, and Harry shoots a sharp glance over his shoulder at the mess of adults still shouting. To the fake-grandpa.

Moony’s hand retracts like he’s been burned.

“Dumbledore’s Headmaster. Has been since he defeated Grindelwald.” Neville says, and Ducra’s warning suddenly makes a lot more sense.

“You do know who Grindelwald is, right?” Harry asks suddenly, whipping around to face him, and Jason can’t help but bark out a laugh.

“Yeah. I – yeah. He tried to fuck with the States a time or two, and the Tribes are still pissed about it.”

“That’s where you’re from?”

“Mostly. My grandmother’s in Nepal.” Technically.

“You’re – you were raised muggle too?” Harry asks. Jason hesitates a minute.

“Complicated question. Yes, but I knew supernatural shit existed. I didn’t get wrapped up in any of it until I was older, and I mostly avoid wizards.”

“How come?”

“My grandmother thinks you’re all losers.” He says, and that earns him a half-smothered snort from both of the kids.

“Hermione said one time that wizards don’t have an ounce of logic in them.” Harry confides. Neville rolls his eyes, but doesn’t actually protest.

“Hermione one of your friends?”

“She’s waiting outside. In the lobby, I mean. They wouldn’t let her in but she wouldn’t let me go alone.”

“Well, when we get out of here we can grab lunch or something and we can all interrogate each other.”

“Why?” Harry asks, hackles raising, and Jason can’t help but raise an unimpressed brow.

“You were orphaned, your only legal guardian imprisoned – for what, by the way, nobody ever told me – and sent to live with some abusive fuckwit named Petunia. None of the adults in your life except for a guy who is now dead have done anything to take you out of that situation, or else you’d already be safe. I do not expect you to like me, I do not expect you to trust me, but I will not allow you to remain in that situation any longer. Letting you and your friends quiz me is the least I can do before – “ Jason cuts himself off and waves a hand at – everything.

“You said you were from the States, though.”

“I’ll have to find a place local ‘till this shit’s sorted out, but that won’t be a problem.” He says. Neville tilts his chin up a little.

“It might be safer to go for a muggle place right now. Attacks haven’t started up yet, not out in the open, but there are – raids and stuff.”

“Young Master has no need of muggle hovels. Family Black’s ancestral home – “

“- Is a literal shithole.” Harry cuts in, scowling at Kreacher, and Kreacher quite literally puffs up in indignation. The animosity between them is palpable, which is a problem, because Jason can’t really get rid of Kreacher now, and he won’t get rid of the kid.

“There are other Black properties. Here – you two run. Go get your friend. Before the rest of the adults notice or what the fuck ever. Asshole behind me won’t say a word if he gives two shits about you.” Jason adds, tilting his head to glare at Moony. The man meets his gaze head-on, which is more ballsy than Jason expected.

“What are you?” The man asks. His voice is pitched low, private. Harry’s expression morphs into one of affront. Jason sees Neville’s eyebrows skyrocket in his peripheral. They know, then, that this man isn’t human.

“That’s offensive. I’m offended. The fuck if I know, a wizard apparently. Jesus fuck, DNA tests are going to be a bitch again, aren’t they?” Jason mutters, and pushes himself to his feet. The kids scram. Moony stands with him, expression hard and suspicions.

And then the white-haired woman is there, at Jason’s side. Moony’s eyes snap to her.

“Lupin.” She says, and her eyes are red and her hands are shaking, but her tone is perfectly disdainful without so much as a hint of the shock that she’s been showing the past few times Jason’s looked at her.

“Cissa.” Moony – Lupin, so he’s a fucking werewolf, what the fuck? – snarls, teeth barred in a parody of a smile.

Cissa – Narcissa, Regulus had said. The one with a son. His cousin.

Turning a blind eye, his father had accused her of. She’d have been – she’d have to be – pureblood, to have been a Black. Her son too. Safe within her privilege. But Sirius had been disowned, disinherited, whatever, and she’d still come. Still, apparently, been left something.

He doesn’t want to touch dead familial bonds.

“Your father was my cousin – Jason, was it? My name is Narcissa Malfoy.” She doesn’t even look at Lupin when she speaks, all of her attention on him, and it isn’t so much a slight as – even if she were to be standing by someone she did care about, she wouldn’t have been giving them the time of day.

“You were close?” He asks. She nods, and lets out a trembling breath.

“We were – I suppose you wouldn’t know, but my sisters were…hard to grow up with, and Sirius was as wild as they come even before he abandoned us. Regulus was my best friend.”

“Sirius didn’t abandon you, you sanctimonious bitch!” Lupin snarls, moves, and Jason has a hand on the man’s chest immediately. Too late, though – Lupin was loud, and now the bitchfight has broken up and all attention is on them.

“I’m afraid I have no idea how these things go here in wizarding Britain, Narcissa. I’d love to chat with you, but now is apparently not a good time.”

“I will make myself available whenever you are, Jason.” She says, firmly, and she’s serious, hundred percent, and –

“My boy, there’s – “ Fake-grandpa starts, but the elderly woman – the one who had noticed Jason earlier - jabs an elbow into his stomach.

“I appreciate that, and I hope to sort something out soon. I would – I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, Narcissa, I’m sure things have changed since Re – since my father died. But if you in any way support the asshole with a blood fetish attempting to commit a bunch of child murder, including the kid I am now in charge of, I don’t think I’ll have much to say.”

She hides her amusement well, is the thing. He only knows because he’s spent hours trying to figure out Talia’s ticks, the barest twitch of facial muscles. The speculative look in her eye is less guarded.

She might be an ally, he thinks.

“I understand. If you don’t mind, I’ll send a message along with Kreacher later tonight.”

He feels Kreacher perk right up; as strongly as he’d felt Kreacher’s disdain for Harry, he feels his adoration for Narcissa.

“Would you be willing, Kreacher?” Jason asks anyway, and the being nods sharply.

“Kreacher will keep messages secure for Miss Cissa and young Master.”

She gives him a watery smile, and a kiss on the cheek before sweeping out so elegantly that he’s half-convinced she’s spelled her robes to move with just the right amount of flair.

“Thank you, Kreacher.” Jason says, and Kreacher beams. He casts a sharp look at Lupin and drops his hand, wades out of the metal chairs and towards the papers he’d been perusing prior to everyone’s arrival.

“American, are you?” The woman who’d come with Neville asks. She’s loud, obnoxiously so. Jason pauses, a scroll in one hand, and very nearly jumps when it disappears; when he glances down, Kreacher is snatching up all of the paperwork and vanishing it. Hopefully he’ll be able to retrieve it later – Jason doesn’t think he’ll be able to get another copy.

“And you are?” There’s a bite to his words. She sniffs, still looking down her nose at him. The other elderly woman steps forward.

“I apologize for Augusta’s rudeness, Mr. Black. I’m sure it must be overwhelming, especially with so many strangers present.” The last is said with a bladed look towards the fake-grandpa. Jason thinks he likes her.

“I appreciate the sentiments, Miss…?”

“McGonagall. Professor McGonagall, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is Albus Dumbledore, our Headmaster. You were speaking with Remus Lupin earlier. Augusta Longbottom, and Andromeda, Ted, and Nymphadora Tonks. I’m afraid few of us knew your father very well, Mr. Black, but we were all good friends with your uncle.”

Kreacher’s latched onto his hand again. Jason nods, carefully.

“I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you all. Like I told Narcissa, though, I’m afraid I have a lot to get done in a short amount of time. If any of you have particular business with me, you are more than welcome to send an owl – you do use owls here, don’t you?”

“Are you unfamiliar with the owl post, my boy?” Fake-grandpa, Dumbledore, asks. Digging for information, Jason thinks.

“The Tribes are more cognizant of invasive species.” He says, and then leaves.

X

He hauls ass back to the lobby and checks with the nearest teller to ensure that the custodial paperwork has gone through, make sure he doesn’t have to sign anything. When the teller hems and haws and starts in on bullshit, Kreacher hisses at it, and he gets a solid yes, I so swear in ten seconds flat.

He needs a fucking magic lawyer, Jason realizes, and then he goes on a hunt for the kids, which turns out to not be much a hunt at all, because Kreacher just. Points them out.

They’re half-hidden behind one of the lobby’s decorative pillars, Harry tucked behind Neville’s bulk and a girl with such a shock of bushy caramel-colored hair that he’s hardly visible. Harry spots him first, and nudges his friends, and for like fifth time that day Jason gets to hear somebody audibly gasp at the sight of him. This time in recognition.

Which is. A whole goddamn mess.

“The mudblood knows young Master?” Kreacher asks lowly, and, wow, that’s a lot to unpack. No wonder the kid hates him.

“Do you know who that is?” He hears the girl hiss, just before he reaches them.

“We’ve got like a minute flat to get the fuck out of here before Neville’s crazy whatever sees us. Who knows where good food is?”

Neville, apparently. He clarifies that Augusta is apparently his grandmother, and then drags Jason close enough to fully block Harry from the lobby’s view, and then Harry yanks something out of his pocket and just. Straight up disappears.

Invisibility, probably, but. Jason doesn’t have the brain space to parse that out.

“Actually, would it be safer to eat on the non-magical side of things?”

“Merlin, yes. Hermione, you lead.”

“There’s a wonderful Indian place near the Leaky – just follow me!” The girl squeaks, and then turns and flees.

He’s got Kreacher clinging to one hand, an invisible kid at his side, another kid at his back and a third in front, and Jason expects to be tripping over all three of them but they are surprisingly fleet of foot, and even more notable, quick to adjust to the crowd. They rush, but not so much as to draw attention.

She’s another good soldier, he thinks, and feels something settle like iron in his gut.

Kreacher hisses when they get out of that pub and step onto an actual fucking sidewalk, but snaps his fingers and all of a sudden – there are no eyes on them.

“Cool spell.” Jason says the third time someone casually swerves out of their way, and he can feel Kreacher preening at the compliment.

“Some sort of disillusionment. Maybe a muggle-repelling, too.” Hermione says breathlessly.

“Muggle?”

“Non-magical. They use different terms in America, don’t they?”

“Think so, but things are more complicated over there.”

“How so?”

“There are more flavors of supernatural than wizard and non-magical.” Jason says dryly, and all three of the kids damn near eat shit they trip so hard, and then he has to deal with a veritable cacophony of hissed questions and demands and by the time they get to the hole-in-a-wall restaurant, he’s absolutely bewildered.

He succeeds in getting them table, and ordering food, and wrangling Kreacher into a spot in the booth next to him instead of letting him crouch threateningly on the light fixture above them. Sitting at a table with his “young master” is apparently a terrible thing, or would be at a wizard table. A muggle table, however, is apparently free game.

“Will you explain now?!” Hermione looks about ready to burst out of her skin, Jason thinks with no small degree of amusement.

“What the actual fuck are they even teaching you at that Hogwarts?” He demands. All three kids, sat in a neat row across the table from him, deflate a little.

“There’s a curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. We don’t get many good teachers and those we do have to play catchup so hard that our curriculum is stripped.” Hermione sounds positively murderous about it.

“So they – what, just pretend wizard magic is the end all be all of magic?”

“We have no idea what you’re talking about, so, yeah.” Neville says, but he sounds more amused than appalled. Jason closes his eyes and scrubs his hands over his face.

“Alright. Spill. Tell me what the hell is Britain’s problem, why those old assholes were pissed about the will. Gringotts has already filed custody for the magical side of things, but it’ll take me a minute to file in the non-magical. I’ve been legally dead for the past couple years.”

“But I thought – “ Hermione snaps her mouth shut and goes bright red. Jason raises an eyebrow.

She’d recognized him.

“You got a cousin in Gotham or something?” He asks, and she flushes even harder.

“My uncle. Mum and Dad don’t talk to him but – I keep in touch. You – um. You helped him out recently. He sent me a picture of the two of you.”

Jason goes still. Because he doesn’t take pictures of himself, and hardly lets others. In the past three months there is only one person with whom he’s taken a picture, and that had been –

“You’re shitting me.”

She blushes so hard he kind of expects her to explode.

Jason’s always thought fairly highly of Nygma. As Robin, his riddles and word puzzles had been entertaining, fun, challenging. Nygma is a gracious loser as long as they play his games honestly, and he’d been more apt to take hostages than straight up kill people during Jason’s tenure. Post-resurrection, Nygma had been one of the few Gotham villains Jason had refused to kill.

Nygma had only ever gone after the same sort of assholes Jason did, is the thing. His collateral was mostly in buildings, very rarely in innocent bystanders, and by the time Jason had returned to Gotham Nygma was more than content to fade into the background.

It’d been Harley’s idea, apparently, a throwaway joke, to start up an escape room. Nygma had gone to Jason for permission, given that he was based out of Crime Alley with his latest stint out of Arkham, and – Jason had helped him out.

Jason sort of expected it to be a phase, something Nygma picked up and dropped depending on how well his mental health was, but so far he’d done great at it. People were coming from out of the city to try his challenges, and he hadn’t even killed anyone yet.

“You’re from Gotham?” Harry whispers.

“He’s the Red Hood, Harry.”

“I don’t know what any of that means.” Neville pips up, and before Jason can say anything, Hermione jumps in.

“He’s a vigilante based out of Gotham city in America. He’s a friend of my uncle – the one who sent you that plant cutting for your birthday last year!”

That’s horrifying.

“It hasn’t like, ate anybody yet, has it?” Jason asks, concerned, because Ivy’s typically fine but her plants are wild, and Neville looks offended.

“Not anybody it wasn’t supposed to. I put it on the edge of the Manor’s property so it could go after intruders.”

That’s outright. Concerning.

“Also – I’m not a vigilante, don’t sugar coat that shit. I’m a crime lord. I kill people.”

“Could you kill Voldemort?” Harry asks quickly, and Jason stares for a moment before nodding because all three of the kids are unphased but Harry in particular is –

Jason’s underestimated just how bad his previous situation was, if finding out the stranger taking him in murders people in his spare time is a bonus.

“Good. I don’t really want to kill Tom.” Harry announces, and then slumps over the table.

“Weak.” Kreacher snorts.

“Tom. The asshole’s name is Tom?”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

“Dark Lord Tom, Jesus Christ. Okay, fine, sure, what the fuck ever. Quit distracting me, tell me what’s going on.”

And, finally, they do.

X

It’s horrifying.

Jason hardly eats his food – the kids are more than able to finish it, so, cool – as he listens to a half a decade of gross negligence and child abuse and squatting? Which is weird.

Sirius Black had been framed for a bunch of murder and for telling Dark Lord Tom where Harry’s parents were hiding. Dumbledore, who held a great deal of sway in the government, had known he’d not received a trial, must have known Sirius was not the traitor because the rules of magic or whatever, and hadn’t done a thing.

Dumbledore is running a vigilante group that sounded as organized and powerful as a wet sponge against a hurricane, and had taken over Family Black’s ancestral home to do so. By stealing the whole goddamn building.

And Sirius is dead because Harry had been trapped, tricked and lured into the magical Ministry after a prophecy, apparently, and that’s horrifying.

Jason hears about the Boy-Who-Lived and snaps his fork in half.

He hears about the possessions – a spirit in a man, a spirit in a diary, a spirit in a snake – and thinks, oh no.

And then he hears what Hermione did to her parents.

X

“But – “

Harry slaps a hand over Hermione’s mouth, and Jason makes a note to thank the kid later.

Dumbledore had suggested it.

Erasing her very existence from her parents’ minds and compelling them to move out of the country would’ve been a spectacularly badass move if there were no other options at all, but she’s a literal goddamn child and Jason’s there now, which –

“Look, kid, you could not have ever foreseen me dropping into this shitshow, so I’m not going to flip shit on you. Never trust another goddamn word out of Dumbledore’s mouth, and we’ll be fine.”

He’s not actually mad at her, and judging by how hard she’s crying she seems to know that. But it is horrifying to realize how hopeless these children think the situation is, how isolated and well-conditioned they are.

If Bruce would’ve told him to jump back when Jason had worn the reds and greens –

“You can keep them safe?” Harry asks hoarsely – just as emotional as Hermione but about a thousand times better at hiding it – and Jason nods. Looks to Kreacher.

“Family Black has other properties, beyond the one Dumbledore stole. We’ll need a place to stay anyway, a place to make our base of operations.”

“Kreacher knows of such properties.” Kreacher says carefully, eyes narrowed.

“You’ll need more than one house elf to restore an abandoned property, even if the wards are still intact.” Neville interjects. Kreacher scowls.

“Kreacher can’t clean either, you’ll definitely need other house elves.” Harry chirps, and Kreacher’s scowl gets deeper and darker in ways that should be impossible on such a small face.

“Wait, wait – house elf, that’s what you are? Like a brownie?”

“Kreacher is not a cleaning house elf! Kreacher is a guarding house elf! Kreacher has kept Family Black’s wards strong and powerful without Family Black there to help!”

“They get their magic from acts of service. They’ll contract with a wizarding family and serve them.” Neville, Jason decides, is his favorite. He knows just went to jump in with concise, relevant information.

“It’s slavery!” Hermione blubbers, still sobbing, and Jason nods slowly.

“Who fucked up the contract first, then? Would’ve had to be pre-Statute if you’re all still here.”

The kids all go still. So does Kreacher. Kreacher’s gnarly little hand reaches out and very gently brushes against the top of Jason’s head, and his skin absolutely does crawl at that.

“Young Master is smart. Wizards broke the compact.”

“Is there any way to repair it?”

“Forge it anew.” Kreacher says, eyes sharp, and Jason nods slowly. Makes a mental note of it, and throws it on the backburner.

“I know another house elf that could help.” Harry says, and fifteen minutes later Kreacher and a much smaller, visibly younger house elf named Dobby have deposited the four of them in Hermione’s backyard and vanished, ostensibly to prepare one of the Black properties.

X

It takes twenty minutes to calm down the Doctors Granger, who are more than a little alarmed to find a squad of teenagers and a young adult storming into their kitchen through their backyard. From there, Jason spends about ten minutes fiddling around with the magic he can sense hanging over them like gossamer before mentally saying fuck it and slicing Talia’s dagger through the spells.

There is a reason it’s one of his favorites, after all – so magically inert as to repel magic. Comes in handy when dealing with summoning circles in Gotham, because all he has to do is toss it at the circle and it’ll disrupt the flow of magic. Memory charms this powerful require a sort of looping power, to sustain themselves, which is effectively the same in construction, and – thankfully – it works.

The kids are holed up in the kitchen. Jason’s crouching in front of Hermione’s parents in their living room. He watches the magic dissipate, watches them blink an odd sort of haze from their eyes, and then winces when Dr. Granger’s hand shoots out and grabs his shoulder hard enough to bruise.

“Hermione – “

“She’s safe. And I need you two to breathe for a minute before you go run in there after her.”

The other Dr. Granger nods, jerkily. He’s pale, shaking.

“Was she right? Is the danger that – really that big?” Dr. Granger asks, and her voice trembles even if her grip doesn’t. Jason winces.

“There are four muggleborn students in your daughter’s year at Hogwarts right now. That isn’t because there are so few born.”

Wizards are fairly small as far as magical populations go. It’s part of the reason the Tribes kicked their metaphorical doors open and hollered at every other flavor of supernatural to come the fuck in. But –

“Your daughter’s got a blind faith in authority figures. She trusted me ten seconds after seeing me and she trusted her headmaster when he told her spelling you would be the safest course of action.”

Dr. Granger’s expression goes dark.

“And you – what, had her break it?”

“You’ll still have to go into hiding, but I’ve – apparently I have a safe place, where you two can ground your kid and be as involved as it’s possible to be. If that’s what you want. If you want to haul ass out of here and go to Australia, no one’s going to stop you – but if these assholes are half as dangerous as wizards make them out to be, they will hunt your daughter down, and I don’t think you’ll be able to keep her alive if you take her with you.”

“Because we don’t have magic?” The other Dr. Granger asked darkly, coldly. Jason rolls his eyes and shoves himself to his feet.

“Because you don’t have training.”

“Oh, Jesus, you’re Ed’s work friend, aren’t you?” Dr. Granger moans, and when her husband shoots her a look, waves him off.

“Nevermind – where’s our daughter?” She demands, and Jason steps out of her way.

The couple are already packed, the house they are in nearly sold. Any later and they would’ve been on their way to the airport.

It’s a small victory, but Jason’s pretty sure that’s all he’ll be getting in the near future.

X

Manor Black, Kreacher calls it, and Jason thinks he’s a little bit in love.

It’s not that he’s materialistic – he can’t be, literally can’t, not when he lives in safehouses and isn’t welcome in his childhood bedroom – but the whole fucking place is genuinely magical. It looks like the setting to his favorite novels, a place he couldn’t even dream of, and with the magic sunk into the home’s very bones –

“Manor Black was built by hand, you know. One of the last great runic undertakings before it fell out of fashion pre-the Witch Hunts. Every block of stone hand-carved with runic arrays, every log of wood hand-etched, every pane of glass…” Neville is look around slowly, as awed as Jason feels.

He’s sure the outside is beautiful too – Dobby and Kreacher had transported them directly inside the entry hall – but there’s so much to look at in here –

“Is there a library?” He asks. Kreacher’s ears flap excitedly, and the old elf points up a grand staircase to the second floor.

The wards, too are –

Works of art. Jason has no head for that sort of thing, but they hang heavy and warm and comforting over him like a weighted blanket.

“Dobby be showing Harry Potter’s Grangees their rooms!” Dobby declares, and snags Hermione’s hand. Her eyes are puffy and red, but she still laughs a little, and her father’s arm is around her shoulder as her parents follow her into the depths of the house.

“Did – did Padfoot ever come here?” Harry asks. Sirius, he means. A nickname.

“Mistress Walburga closed up Manor Black after her mother’s death.” Kreacher says gravely, and shakes his head.

“There aren’t any ghosts.” Jason says softly, when Neville’s eyes get big.

“How do you know?”

“Ghosts are rare. It’d be unlikely. And they’re – distinctive. Easy to feel.” If one has an affinity, or a sense, or a talent for death magic. Kreacher’s ears start fluttering harder; he knows what Jason hasn’t said. But the boys just look – interested.

“C’mon. Let’s go find our rooms and crash.”

“I should – “

“Kid, you’re going back to your grandmother over my dead body.”

“That’s kidnapping.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

X

              He wakes up late the next afternoon, and slips outside while everybody is preoccupied with a let’s tell the Grangers about everything we’ve lied to them about the past five years meeting. He thumbs his phone on after he feels the wards slip reluctantly from his shoulders, and makes a call.

“It’s secure.” Tim’s voice is tinny, distant.

“How fast can you get to London without alerting anybody to where you’re going?”

“What’d you do?”

“I am a parent now and magic Hitler is trying to kill my kids.”

“…Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“You’re – are you drugged right now?”

“Do you want to help out or not?”

“I’m not going to – “

“The people fighting magic Hitler are led by a serial child abuser, and I need him alive at least long enough to kill magic Hitler, and I will put a fucking bullet in his throat if somebody who is capable of guilting me out of murder isn’t there to guilt me out of murder.”

“No bullshit?”

“You’re the only person on-planet that I trust could handle themselves in this fight and, more importantly, that I trust will keep this shit to themselves. Like Code MIB keep it to yourself.”

“Where are you?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

“You’re useless and I hate you.”

Chapter Text

RH: got a job overseas

BB: thought u were visiting family u fucking liar

RH: i AM there’s just also a lot of people who need to die

BB: so?

RH: anybody want to kill some wizards

CR: IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS

RH: probably

BB: im sorry what??? wizards??

CR: MY CUZ IS OVER THERE XXX-XXX-XXXX

CR: GOOD FUCKING LUCK

CR: YOU’LL NEED IT

X

              “We are hot.” Conner says under his breath, looking deeply pleased with himself, and Cassie bites back the immediate urge to smirk as they strut up to Number 4 Privet Drive.

She’s in a fitted suit, blood red with heels high enough to snap a neck, hair scraped back into a no-nonsense bun. Kon’s similarly dressed up, an open jacket in navy and half-unbuttoned white shirt matching his slacks and shoes. He’s got his fancy earrings in, and keeps wiggling his head around so that it flashes annoyingly in his eyes, and more importantly, hers. She’s tempted to yank the fuckers out.

“No one’s home.” Conner tells her, and Cassie snaps the front door’s lock with a flick of her wrist.

They step into a sterile, bland blah of a house. Conner points, immediately, to a boot cupboard almost directly in front of the front door – one secured with an unnervingly large padlock. She crumples that like foil, and then squats and stares into the tiny little cupboard it reveals.

There’s a mattress, stained. The stench of chemicals and misery, human waste and sweat. Much less blood than she expected, though there are still dark smears on the mattress that don’t quite match the grungy children’s drawings on the wall.

“You take upstairs. I’ll finish up here, and work my way through the rest of downstairs.”

“Yessir.” Conner says, snaps off a salute, and meanders off.

Cassie slides the strap over her shoulder off, sets the pack at her feet, and pulls out a camera.

By the time the Dursleys arrive home, they’ve catalogued and sampled everything. Cassie lounges in their dining room, legs crossed in front of her, arm slung over the back of the dining room chair, and she smiles sharp enough to cut when Petunia Dursley steps into the room, looks up, and spots her.

There’s a strangled screech, echoed by a much deeper shout when Conner closes the front door behind Petunia’s husband and son.

“Welcome home.” Cassie says, and prays to the gods she gets to tear someone’s limbs off today.

X

It’s absolutely false to say Bart’s never done this much running in his life, but he doesn’t think he’s ever done this much running outside of a world-ending scenario before, and so it’s basically the same thing.

They’d split the minute they’d landed, Cassie and Conner to fuck knows where and Bart wherever Tim tells him to. Including back to the States.

Twice.

None of his runs are hard – he’s just filing physical copies that Tim hands him into various government cabinets and shit, it’s nothing – but he knows that the others are doing actual fun shit and Tim likes his computer bullshit, and by the time Bart returns and isn’t immediately handed a snack bar and another stack of papers, he’s irate.

“Tim I swear to fucking god – “

“Relax, we’re done.”

Tim doesn’t look up from his laptop screen, but he pats the bedspread beside him absently.

Bart considers it, then flips him both middle fingers and heads for the shower. The water pressure is shit, and he runs out of hot water well before he’d like, but that’s to be expected.

They’re in a dingy motel in a poor district of London, chosen specifically by Tim because he’s weirdly frugal about “we’re only staying for like three hours so no one can track us to our real base” pitstops, often to everyone’s detriment. It’s a weird rich-kid mutation; all of little baby Tim’s unsupervised Gotham wanderings had given him a greater grasp on money and its value than most rich kids, but Bart is in charge of the wallet when they go out for fun for a reason.

He shakes himself dry once all the running gunk is off, throws on one of Cassie’s sweaters and Thad’s favorite pair of sweatpants that he had absolutely stolen, he can’t wait to see the sheer fury in his brother’s face when they get back, and hurtles himself into Tim’s side.

Tim’s moved on from paperwork. He’s looking at an excel doc now, and frowning. Bart’s eyes skim over the names, and he raises an eyebrow.

“What’s this?”

Tim doesn’t answer right away. He chews on his bottom lip, an adjusts his arm so Bart can fit better, and then slams his laptop lid shut.

“I wanted to debrief you all in one go but this is too concerning to wait.”

“What’d Hood find out?”

Bart still has no idea why they’re in London. Neither do Cassie and Conner. Tim had gotten a call from Hood, argued a little bit, and then asked if they’d wanted to go on a trip – as if they’d let him go by himself – and that’d been about it. Something about Hood finding his bio family, which is…knowing the dude’s history, probably not a good thing. Considering the mentions of custody, though –

“Jason’s a wizard.”

“….Like – “

“Like Tribe type of wizard. Magic with a stick type of wizard.”

“Good for him.” Bart says, and the seriousness on Tim’s face cracks enough that he laughs.

“Y – yeah. But – wizards are supposed to be secret, separate from non-wizards.”

“Tribes aren’t.”

“Tribes are smarter than that. Britain’s wizards are supposed to be some of the most insular and isolated – by choice – in the world.”

“So he’s got a second super-secret magic grandma?”

“No, he just walked into a blood supremacy war being waged by a serial child abuser who runs the only school for magical children in all of Britain and a genocidal maniac who has a hard on for murdering the kid Jason found out he has custody of.”

Bart blinks.

See, usually, his brain’s going too fast to process shit; he’s already moving on to the next sentence, next word, already replying by the time someone’s finished speaking. But this –

“Did I just fucking hear you right?” Bart asks, absolutely bewildered.

“Somebody gave Hood a kid?!”

X

“I cannot fucking believe this works.” Conner says under his breath, and pulls out every one of his father’s tricks to keep a genial smile on his face as he watches the social worker and a cop flip through the paperwork Cassie had just handed them.

“Our boy’s a genius.” Cassie says, except she sounds just as disbelieving as he is.

Tim likes to catastrophize, sure, and it’s absolutely gotten worse since Conner and Bart’s respective sort-of-temporary deaths and resurrections, but it usually manifests in contingency plans and safehouses and resource caches. Not this.

At some point, Tim had gone off the deep end about working with law enforcement on cases, because apparently in Gotham he just calls up his favorite cop and is like yo I need you to be cool and she is. The rest of the world is not nearly as easy to get along with.

And for situations like this – or at least as close as Conner can figure out, because Tim still has only given them the bare bones – where Young Justice or an associate is harboring a child from an abnormal threat at the same time law enforcement is trying to help the kid out from a normal threat –

Like, say, removing a child from his abusive aunt and uncle’s home –

There’s paperwork for that.

Not, like, widely accepted paperwork. But signed off by Martian Manhunter and Green Arrow, professionally formatted, and with an actual fucking ‘report abuse’ number attached.

It gives Young Justice – or its associates – ninety days to keep an at-risk youth off the grid despite any legitimate investigations or searches for the youth, strict requirements for lengthening the grace period, and serious promises to finagle a meeting of some type between the kid and their designated legal contact as soon as safe.

It’s apparently been used before, but Conner was kind of dead for that so this is his first time seeing it in action.

“I think we need to go through the computer when we get back and figure out what other shit we could fake our way into doing legally.” He murmurs, too low for the adults to hear, and Cassie nods slowly.

“And this is…legit?” The cop in front of them asks.

Conner’s smile widens a little bit, entirely forced and entirely too smooth for presumably non-enhanced humans in front of him to tell.

“I don’t know that it’s ever been used here in Britain before, but we do keep standard forms for situations like this. We may be acting in a technically sanctioned capacity but our purpose here is to stop the bad guys, not kidnap a kid. I don’t know how soon we’ll be able to arrange contact, but we will keep you updated as our case progresses.”

“And what is the case, exactly? Because this is…” The social worker trails off, expression pained as his gaze drops back to the stack of papers in his hands. Conner has no fucking clue what their cover story is, but Cassie steps in neatly.

“Harry’s parents were murdered in front of him by a rather notorious meta hunter as a baby. He was supposed to go to his legal guardian afterwards, but some infighting in his parents’ community led to the hunter escaping arrest and a would-be leader kidnapping Harry and placing him here illegally.”

The cop looks extra alarmed.

“There’s a supervillain – do we -?”

“Red Robin is compiling a list of his victims for your people, but law enforcement never linked him publicly back to any of the deaths. He picked his targets well; his victims were too afraid to come forward for fear of further prosecution. He’s begun picking up the same patterns and habits, but has proven fixated on killing Harry since he showed back up. We’ve got Harry at a safe house with his current legal guardian, but we’re not sure how the meta hunter is tracking him yet and he’s already proven willing to commit mass murder to get to his targets.”

“Current legal guardian – this Jason Black? Has he passed a background check or anything?”

“We verified his identity and his commitment to protecting Harry. They’re cousins, through their respective fathers’ sides. Mr. Black’s uncle was Harry’s rightful guardian. He was murdered in front of Harry hardly a month ago, trying to protect him and his friends from the meta hunter we’re after.”

The social worker closes his eyes.

“We can start him on therapy now, right? Wherever he’s at?”

Oh, he’s one of the good ones. Conner’ll have to add his name to the lists going around the younger hero community – unlike some assholes, Conner’s generation has no problem crowd sourcing and pooling resources.

“Red Robin’s team is trying to set up a stable internet connection, and we intend to spend the next few days ensuring he can safely meet with you or another representative – we’re not trying to keep you from him or anything like that. Kid Flash is willing to ferry everyone around, we just need to know that we won’t be summoning a crazed serial killer to wherever Harry goes, once he’s outside of the safe house.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” The cop says, and shakes his head.

Conner exchanges contact info with the two men, and it’s another twenty minutes before he and Cassie manage to extract themselves from the investigators.

The Dursleys have already been carted away, handcuffed, and the investigators have been tearing the house apart since. The entire neighborhood is huddled in doorways and windows and at garden gates, watching with eager, hungry eyes.

Conner barely waits until they’ve walked around the block and ducked into a sort-of-alley behind a corner store to grab at Cassie. She’s vibrating as intensely as he is.

“Jason Black? Did somebody give Hood a kid?”

“I don’t fucking know but I’m gonna smother Tim in his sleep if he kept this from us.”

X

              Narcissa Malfoy greets Jason with a smile, and is kind enough to restrain herself from reaching out to him. She effortlessly, seamlessly, turns the attempt into a gesture to the seat across from her, and Jason does not mention it.

Kreacher had arranged this meeting before Jason had even asked, selected an appropriately neutral restaurant within the wizarding district housing Gringotts, and chosen a time convenient to both parties. He’s grateful for that – he would not have selected such a high-class place on his own, would not have blended his and Narcissa’s meeting half so well with the surroundings. Narcissa may yet prove a useful ally, or someone who he can call family without cringing, but she is peripheral to all fires he is currently trying to put out. His attention is too divided to play her as effortlessly as he will have to the rest of the wizarding world.

“It’s good to see you.” She says sincerely, as if they truly do know each other, as if it has been more than a mere forty-eight hours since they met. Jason is as uncomfortable with her attention now as he was then, but he understands it. Believes it, insofar as he is able.

Harry had been wary, when Jason had mentioned the meeting to him, but both Neville and Hermione had been less suspicious – Harry apparently has a mortal enemy in Narcissa’s son, and Narcissa’s family is as involved with the Dark Lord as the Blacks once were, but she’s well-known for her courtesy and manners.

If she were to try anything, it’d be poison in his tea, not an ambush, is the point. She reminds him a great deal of Talia.

Jason takes his seat with all the grace he learned and pointedly ignored as the child of the richest man in Gotham. He’s not wearing wizard clothing, but he is dressed more formally in a waistcoat and slacks, and he doesn’t look too out of place even if he is drawing odd looks. The style’s a little outdated, but Kreacher had been working on Black family hand-me-downs from some great-great-something-or-other, and the job had been done admirably.

Narcissa flicks her wand in a rapid-fire sequence once he’s situated.

“Privacy charms, things to prevent eavesdroppers or lipreaders from taking advantage of our public setting. You are unfamiliar with them, I take it?” She explains, even as she continues casting. Jason watches curiously, and shakes his head.

“I know of it, but I don’t practice wanded magic and was never formally educated in it.”

She pauses, looks at him calculatingly, and then slips her wand away.

“You practice other forms of magic?”

“Call it a multidisciplinary approach.” He says, amused, and she nods slowly. She looks as fascinated and clueless as Hermione had, which is…unsettling. He hadn’t thought half the complaints the Tribes made about foreign wizards were literal, but their isolationism is more than just a single shit school, if even the adults have no idea what he could possibly be doing.

If Gotham were half as isolated its magical catastrophes would be so much easier to deal with.

“I must warn you your arrival is a point of interest to many here in the magical world.”

“Your husband and his boss?”

She smiles. It’s a sharp, vicious thing. Bitter, too, and unsurprised by his bluntness.

“Regulus was one of his favorites. I don’t think he knows now, or knew then, whatever it was Regulus did against him. For the memory of your father, he wants you brought close.”

Well that’s horrifying.

“Does he know about the kid?”

“Not yet. Given the intensely personal and emotional nature of the situation, I have not been questioned as he typically prefers. Out of respect for Regulus.”

What kind of man – boy, he was no older than Jason when he’d died – was he, to inspire such seemingly genuine care on the part of a literal madman?

Jason thinks that merely for a moment – but then shakes the thought away. Bruce had done the same thing, at least twice over. Ra’s and the Joker are entirely different beasts, but the affection still remains. All of Jason’s fathers have been terrible men; he shouldn’t be so surprised that Regulus Black was too.

“Do you know who I am?” He asks her.

She’s being open. Honest, as best he can tell, and he appreciates that – but affection for a dead relative and hope for a familial relationship cannot explain the risks she is taking not just in meeting with him, in speaking to him, but in the content of her words. That she knows him could explain her apparent confidence in his ability to stand up to her Dark Lord, but –

But she looks surprised and confused by his question, absolutely baffled.

“I – “

“You’re assuming I’m going to take action against him. Which, to be clear, I am. I’m going to slaughter his people, make an example of him, and put that fucking Headmaster in the ground like he deserves. Not super impressed with your Ministry either, and nobody’s given me a good reason not to torch that shit. But I want to know why you think I’m going to do that.”

She looks taken aback, leans just a touch back in her chair and stares at him with big eyes, but before she can respond a waitress sweeps up.

Jason feels the spells Narcissa had erected shift to allow the girl in; she doesn’t seem to notice, and gives no reaction to the way they seal up behind her when she leaves with their orders. The waitress is only gone a few minutes before the table shimmers warningly; Jason lifts his arms and their meals appear fully plated and ready.

It’s unsettling. What’s more unsettling is that he recognizes maybe half the ingredients in their salads, and absolutely doesn’t know what the meat in their soup is. Kreacher will be able to help him – later. Once this shit’s all sorted out. Kreacher’s got to know a magical grocer, after all.

“My husband has proven to be a poor – employee. He…I regret not listening to Regulus before he…”

Narcissa’s voice falters, and she picks up her utensils. Jason pokes dubiously at a chunk of some pearly-pink thing in his salad and takes a bite while he waits for her to collect herself.

“Regulus came to me hours before he vanished – before he died. He begged me to flee. House Black owns property in almost every magical community on the globe, and he pleaded with me to choose one and stay there until the Dark Lord fell.”

Her voice is oddly clinical and distant as she speaks, and her body deeply emotional in contrast; her eyes do not meet Jason’s, her lips press into a thin line, her fingers twist around the handle of her fork.

“Was that the first time he’d spoken treason to you?” Jason asks slowly. Narcissa’s smile is a fleeting, joyless thing.

“Spoken, yes. By then – his descent was slow, begun long before we were born. He was around for our childhoods, you know. Attended the family dinners, drank with our fathers, was our guest of honor at holidays. Once open warfare broke out, his deterioration accelerated at an exponential pace. Your father and I had – of course we’d noticed. We’d taken to warning each other when he was particularly volatile, sending others in to deliver bad news instead of going ourselves.”

She pauses, and takes a breath.

“He only put voice to what we both already knew. I’d expected Regulus to be broken about it, but he was…your father was so very practical, Jason. He had joined because it was demanded of him, because he agreed with what were at the time the Dark Lord’s public goals, because like me he was furious at our siblings’ betrayals. He wasn’t attached to the man, no matter how devoted he had to pretend to be.”

“You joined because you were angry with your siblings?”

“Andromeda. A simplification. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I never resisted joining because of what she did. I don’t know what you have learned about your grandparents, or your great uncle and aunt, but they were not altogether safe to be around, let alone kind. Andromeda abandoned us to marry a muggleborn. Bellatrix was lost to her madness within months, and then Sirius fled too. Regulus and I were left to bear the brunt of our parents’ respective insanity.”

“Did you hope they would kill her?”

“No. I hoped they would kill her husband.” She says, as if that was a perfectly reasonable thing to say, and Jason doesn’t know whether he should laugh or not.

She is not, he’s deduced, sitting here speaking dangerous things of her husband’s master because she feels bad. She’s not here because she cares about the genocide or hundred other assorted war crimes.

She’s here for her family.

“I turned Regulus away at the time. I was not yet pregnant, and I would not risk losing my dragon before he had even arrived. It was…not a pleasant parting. I was cruel.”

She looks at him searchingly, and despite himself, Jason finds himself sharing a sad, sharp smile with her.

He’d been in Regulus’ shoes. But he knew how regretful final confrontations could be first-hand. The what-ifs.

He does not think that it is fair for her, to weigh the loss of her beloved cousin beside the loss of her beloved son. There was no way for her to save both of them.

“You knew you’d have a son?”

“Divination is a proper pastime for any young lady of good breeding. I have a particular talent for it, though I only ever told Regulus. He was with me when I cast for children – it may sound very small of me, but I have always wanted to be a mother. Draco was to be my only, you see. I – Regulus thought I could have given Draco a different father. I was not so certain.”

She looks down at her food, and then very deliberately places her fork down. Folds her hands in her lap.

“Lucius did something…very foolish, and was caught. The Dark Lord was, and still is, furious. And in his madness, he no longer hesitates to punish Draco in Lucius’ place. Lucius is too much a coward to fight for our son, to risk so much as helping him. Bellatrix and I do our best – my sister gone mad decades ago with her devotion to the Dark Lord and she still risks his wrath, where my husband would rather let our son bleed – “

She cuts herself off.

And Jason…sets his own utensils down.

He’d thought Narcissa to be like Talia – and perhaps she is, in some ways, but she is not in the ways that Jason most expected.

Narcissa is trapped. Has been trapped. Where Talia would have carved the heart out of anyone, let alone a man who dared order her about – where Talia would have poisoned his drink and be done with it –

So wizards are sexist, too.

Great.

That, perhaps, answers his most salient question – why the hell is Tom still alive?

“I care very little for muggles, or the magical children born to them. I resent that my people must hide ourselves and cower in fear of another Hunt when a single competent witch could level all of London without breaking a sweat. I hate my sister and I hated Sirius, and I do not care overmuch for any blood spilt so long as it is not Black. If the Dark Lord were sane, were competent, were safe – we would be having a very different conversation.” She’s calm, but – wary. As if Jason might yet judge her, refuse her, for helping for the wrong reasons. Braced, as if he might yet attack her for her lack of care.

“Your motives only matter to me insofar as I can be assured you won’t betray me or mine.” Jason tells her. She’s not the first person devoid of empathy that he has dealt with. She won’t be the last. And he’s never particularly cared, either way. It would be hypocritical, to throw a fit about it.

“You are family, Jason. A son of the House of Black.” She says, as if that is all the assurance he could need. For Regulus Black, perhaps it had been – she had kept his confidence all these years, after all. Hidden his betrayal, his change of heart, from even the Dark Lord himself.

“You are aware that I am going to kill your husband.”

She smiles at him, sweetly.

“Wizarding Britain does not allow for divorce.”

A few months from now, Jason will point to this exact sentence as an explanation for the crater he leaves where once the Ministry stood.

X

After their meal concludes, Jason hands over a scrap of parchment with a messy address scrawled out on it.

“Kreacher will meet the two of you there tonight. If you can pack things, go for it. It won’t matter if you’re followed.” Jason says.

Ambiguity about his position could be valuable – but he cannot bring himself to care enough to leverage it. He’s not playing politics. He’s here to kill some people, and kidnap some children.

“The – two of us?”

Narcissa is not quick enough to hide the actual shock in her voice, and Jason stares at her, bewildered, before things click.

She’d only ever expected to get her son out. Had expected to be left behind.

“Jason, if you truly do intend to stand against the Dark Lord, you will need allies within his ranks.” She doesn’t want to, he thinks. For all the firmness in her tone, she looks a little lost.

“Narcissa, I don’t mean to insult you, but I am more than capable of finding any information you could share with me in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the risk. This will hardly be the first terrorist organization I’ll be culling. Or cult.” Jason adds, although the cults are mostly a Gotham thing and they tend to be small.

“Jason…”

“There’s a rune circle carved into the very bones of the earth at this location. Kreacher will apparate you home from there. I don’t know how knowledgeable you are about things like guest rites, but the land there will function as a binding contract – if you or your son ever decide to go back on your words, your magic will warn me. If you go in with malintent, you won’t be able to travel with Kreacher.”

Ducra had knowledge of all sorts of hidden places like the ring of which Jason speaks. He’s not sure if she made them – some of them – or just found them, but he’s long since memorized their locations and uses. He still quizzes Essence on them when she proves more irritating than usual.

“I am worried that you are overestimating your abilities.” Narcissa says, carefully, eyes solemn and face pale even as the scrap in her hand disintegrates.

Jason’s answering smirk is a slow thing.

X

He makes a stop at a wizarding post office after parting ways with Narcissa. The attendant is a pimply teenage kid who hears the message Jason intends to send and takes a chance to start more shit; he tells him about howlers.

Jason admires the level of absolute fuckery the kid is trying to stir up, and so agrees to send a bright red, smoking envelope to Dumbledore posthaste.

He doesn’t say much. Just –

You have until five o’clock this evening to return the family home you’ve stolen from my late father’s estate.

X

Jason returns to Manor Black with most of his afternoon free, and the strong urge to take a nap. Instead, he hunts down his guests. He finds the Doctors Granger murmuring to each other in the library, Hermione asleep in the sitting room beside a cold cup of tea and a mountain of tomes, and Neville and Harry plotting in the kitchen.

Harry’s brows are knit and mouth pulled down into a severe frown with concentration as he measures out ingredients. Neville watches with wide eyes at his side, carefully handing things over when ordered.

Kreacher’s snarling soundlessly at the boys from the other end of the kitchen island, eyes barely visible through the wire of a fruit basket.

Jason takes a moment to appreciate the kitchen; huge, industrial sized with none of the chrome or metal he’s come to associate with facilities so large. All of the cupboards are carved, the counter tops solid something Jason assumed was quartz, the floors stone charmed to be cushioned.

There was a surprisingly modern looking sink, metal tub and all. Instead of a fridge there was a cold pantry the size of a small house on the interior, and there were three ovens dotted around the rectangular room. A counter ringed the entirety of the room, with the island in the center.

It wasn’t a kitchen intended for eating at; there was a small, cozy solarium tucked away on the far side from the kitchen’s entrance for more intimate meals.

As big and grand and gorgeous as Manor Black was, it had still been built for comfort, for a family that preferred their own company or that of friends to peers. There were enough nooks and tucked away refuges built into the receiving and entertaining rooms that Jason was both perpetually terrified Cass would appear and relieved.

He would never do wizard politics, but if he had to, he could effectively spend the entire duration of an event hidden with a book.

“What the hell are you two doing?” He asks. Kreacher whirls on him like something out of a nightmare, either offended or furious or both, but the boys just look up at him entirely nonplussed.

“Baking herb bread.” Harry says. Growls. Something; he’s entirely absorbed in the task before him with a frankly unsettling focus. Neville smiles up at Jason from the kid’s side.

“We found some recipe books in the library that suggest we could do magic. Kind of like potions, but, um. Less scary. But I don’t know how to bake, and Harry doesn’t know herbology, so.” Neville gestures a little to the flour absolutely drenching his pants, and the still-messy-but-infinitely-cleaner Harry.

Jason pauses, because that sounds – interesting.

“Young Master’s wards be ruining Kreacher’s kitchen.” Kreacher hisses. Jason glances at the nearest window.

“Kreacher gets first dibs on the kitchen, unless we can section off a little area for you guys. I’ll put up a sheet so you know when it’s free before I leave.”

“Young Master not be letting animals be unsupervised in Kreacher’s kitchen!” Kreacher promptly shrieks, as if Jason’s just scandalized him, and Harry looks up long enough to scowl at both of them.

Jason kind of expects a fight, but the kids shuffle off to the corner Kreacher points at without any real fuss – and Kreacher’s kind enough to give them an oven.

Jason escapes while the shuffling is going on, and promptly gets lost.

Manor Black is huge. It would be a goddamn nightmare to secure, if not for magic. Jason’s only ever been in a more secure magical location when at the Fields of All – and the majority of the strength in Manor Black comes from the blood in his veins.

Manor Black would not bend to his will or protect him so intently if he was not a Black.

The time the Manor has spent empty and abandoned, sealed and forgotten, has not affected it near as much as Jason had expected. There’s a shit ton of dust and a whole host of creatures infesting the peripherals of the property – overgrown gardens, greenhouses swallowed whole by their contents, sheds vibrating with whatever has taken refuge inside them – but nothing like broken windows or crumbled walls.

He'll need to landscape, though. There’s too much cover for any old asshole trying to sneak in. Neville likes magic plants, Jason’s fairly certain he can pawn the work off on the kid if he gives the kid free reign. Upside; less work for him. Downside; more murder plants.

Jason’s just considering finding a decent book and a sunny spot to lounge in when the wards flare like white lightning along his nerves.

“That’s my fucking brother.” He hisses, and the wards stutter, then swell in indignation.

Jason realizes with no small degree of horror that he’s going to have to trick Tim into agreeing to a fucking blood ritual or else suffer a goddamn migraine from his house thinking Tim’s an imposter for the next fucking century.

He should’ve told Essence to eat shit and gone back to fucking work.

X

“WHO GAVE YOU A FUCKING KID?! KIDS?!” Bart’s voice gets progressively higher-pitched as Manor Black’s front door swings open and the children in question tumble out.

“Your faith in me is astounding.”

“On one hand. Sure. On the other. Why.” Tim says, just as incredulous, and Jason restrains himself, because if he tries to trip the asshole the wards will jump on that shit and he’s not about to fucking kill the moron when he actually showed up, even if he brought guests –

Bart Allen is a fucking nightmare, and Jason almost regrets calling Tim in except a not-insignificant part of him is relieved. He’d take Young Justice over the Bats or, god forbid, the Justice League any day.

Tim’s little posse is composed entirely of teenagers who are exactly one insult away from slaughter at any given time, Tim himself included. Tim’s got experience keeping people from committing murder through liberal guilt trips and distractions, so much so that criminals generally relax when they see him coming – they think just because Tim doesn’t kill that he’s opposed to it.

Tim’s burst into numerous ‘meetings’ between Jason’s people and rival gangs to talk Jason down before; for a hot minute, some absolute morons had thought if they’d lured Tim into any standoff they were having with the Red Hood, they’d get out alive.

Tim’s objection to murder is more logical than emotional; he’s not obsessive like Bruce or idealistic in the same way Nightwing is. This means Jason doesn’t kill in front of him (or Cass) and Tim sometimes sends him packets of names, and both of them pretend to have seen nothing.

And if Tim makes the mistake of leaving Jason alone with any of his buddies, they sure as fuck aren’t going to stop him if an opportunity to kill Dumbledore shows up. So. Silver linings. Either way, technically, Jason will win.

“When I said keep it mum – “

“They come free of charge. You’re welcome.” Tim respond immediately, rapidly.

Jason – can concede that his brother’s morons are, in fact, surgically attached to each other like fucking limpets. Can concede that their presence will be more beneficial than detrimental.

“As long as Luthor stays the fuck out of my business.” He warns anyway.

“He said it was fine but when we told him we’d probably lose signal because of the whole anti-tech thing wizard magic does here, he got antsy. I’m pretty sure he’s camping out in London until we give him the all-clear.”

Bart talks about Lex Luthor the same way any child would an overprotective, exasperating parent. Tim would be speaking with the same tone if he were addressing the issue; all of Young Justice does. It is, perhaps, the only reason Jason hasn’t shot Luthor himself.

Fucked up clone thing aside, once he found out about Kon, Luthor has been single-minded and obsessive about being a good parent, enough that Metropolis – Daily Planet aside – has stopped vilifying him for every world-domination plot gone wrong.

Luthor in any position of power beyond rich white asshole gives Jason hives, but he’ll allow it. Luthor’s shifted his operations to fit solidly within the parameters Jason allows Gotham’s underworld, once it became apparent he was someone Young Justice – Tim – and by extension Kon trusted.

“Right. Well – anyway. Bio dad was a wizard. Bio dad’s brother was guardian to magical Jesus, except the assfuck running the entire magical education system here wanted to be the guy in charge and illegally placed magical Jesus with abusive assholes.” Jason points at Harry as he speaks; the kids are too far away to hear. Bart leans forward as they walk, like he wants to lunge forward, and casts Jason an impatient look when Jason does not continue explaining.

“You can’t kill his former guardians, by the way. We went the public route. The legal public route. Cassie and Kon should be done soon.” Tim says, as if he’s not a little shit.

“I’ll arrange something after this shit’s handled, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Can we get back to the magical Jesus thing?”

“A wannabe Dark Lord attacked his family when he was a baby. Murdered his parents, tried to murder Harry, somehow offed himself like a fucking moron. Britain called Harry their savior. He’s known as the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“Oh ew.”

“Gets worse, but the kids’ll explain all that to you. The other two are his friends – Hermione Granger is Nygma’s niece, her parents are here for protection. Neville’s grandma’s a piece of shit who I have relieved of custody unofficially. If you’re gonna stick around, I’m putting you lot in charge of figuring out how to make that official.”

The dig is pointed; all Jason had asked for was some falsified records, a new identity, and paperwork for Harry on the non-magical side of things. Instead Tim had handled the Dursleys – fucking Petunia – and invited his whole gang of merry morons along with him.

Also, this way Jason won’t have to study magical British law.

Or ask Ducra for help.

“So like, is this your house now?” Bart asks.

“One of them.” Jason says, smug, and he smirks at Bart’s squawk of outrage.

X

“I think this is terrible.” Neville says, but he shoves another piece of their herb bread in his mouth, so Harry just rolls his eyes at him.

“I like it.”

The magic – the intent – tastes fizzy. It goes oddly well with the savory herbs and seasonings so carefully kneaded into the dough. There’s another hundred-forty-six recipes in the book, all of which derive their power from a mixture of timing, special stirring, cooking implement materials, and herb and spice mixtures. Harry intends to try them all.

“I’ll have to ask Ducra to show you some of her recipes, kid.” The Red Hood says, tone warm, and he’s on his third piece.

Harry does his best not to preen too visibly. He’s already made fun of Hermione for geeking out so hard at meeting Red Robin, and she will kill him if she catches him being a hypocrite.

“Who’s that?” Neville asks.

“My grandmother.”

“She runs a cult.” Red Robin, call me Tim, interjects flatly.

“Not all cults are bad.”

“You regularly have cult hunting nights.”

“Not my fault they like my territory more than yours.” Jason responds mildly. Tim scowls at him.

Jason had made a gross looking concoction earlier and told his brother to drink it; apparently, the Black family magics were not a fan of muggle – or informal – adoption. Tim had done it willingly and called his older brother superstitious and backwards up until Jason had informed him there was blood in it.

Kid Flash doesn’t mind the magic – he either shrugs or calls it cool – but Tim hates magic. Keeps arguing with Hermione about it, although neither of them seem all that put out by their disagreements.

“She sounds cool.” Harry says.

“If shit goes tits up, you lot are going to her place. She hates children, so I expect you to be on your worst behavior, outside of lessons.”

“Is she the one who taught you – the, um, other magic types?” Hermione asks eagerly. Jason nods.

“Most of it, yeah. Folk practices and witchcraft are more powerful than people think, especially when you’re dealing with non-humans. Wizardry is high-and-mighty, but practical applications in the modern world beat out fancy degrees.”

“You’re a fucking magical hick.” Tim says flatly, and Harry bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

Sirius would have liked Jason, he thinks. Would have also hated Jason, because of the Red Hood thing, wouldn’t have trusted him, but – but personally –

Tim had handed him a packet of papers when Jason had introduced them. The custody thing has been sorted out on the muggle side of things. He never has to see the Durselys again.

Won’t, either, and he feels optimistic about that. Anything Dumbledore could do would be ineffective with superheroes watching the case.

He’s not pleased that he has to talk about it, but he thinks Ron’s right about that, that talking about it is a weapon, and this is going to be the most effective time to use it.

“You’re meeting with the Order tonight, aren’t you?” Harry asks, and Jason’s attention immediately turns to him. It’s a heavy thing, physical in weight, made worse when everyone else looks at him too.

“Not willingly. I sent Dumbledore a howler earlier. He’s legally stolen Grimmauld from me with his stupid spell. I’m sure he’ll try to ambush me. Why?”

“You should talk to Mrs. Weasley when you’re there.” Harry chooses his words carefully, and he knows it shows, but –

“You trust her?” Jason asks, just as carefully, and Harry nods slowly.

She’d fought with Dumbledore for him. And believed him about the visions. And even though she’d been mean to Hermione during the Tournament, she had apologized – and they might not trust her with everything, especially personal things, but Harry trusts her to oppose Dumbledore. To help Jason.

And if she’s involved, then she’ll bring Ron. And then all of Harry’s people will be together.

Jason pops the last bit of his herb bread in his mouth.

“Alright.”

X

“How much do you care about what this family has stood for, in the past?” Jason asks. His tone is deceptively casual, and he stretches, takes a deep breath of the evening air, just barely chilled with the onset of dark.

Kreacher looks up at him, lit starkly with the glow pouring out from the windows behind them. He looks a little less stooped than he had the day before, a little less wizened. He’s a house to properly serve now, a living, free relative of the blood and legal wards, now.

But all of that stands in contrast to what Jason’s been told the house elf believes in.

The rest of the rabble is inside, entertaining themselves, acquainting themselves with magic for those to whom it is new and superheroes for those whom that is new. With only two real adults, the kids are loud – but not obnoxiously so.

The Manor feels uncomfortably homey with so much noise. Jason refuses to think on it. He’d stepped outside to corner Kreacher, and to avoid losing track of time – he has meetings to make this evening.

“Kreacher is very old.” The house elf says gravely. Jason nods, slowly, and Kreacher’s eyes flick away, stare out at the grounds before them.

“Castle Black was being attacked by muggles, during the hunts. Mudbloods be joining in the slaughter, thinking muggles be letting them live after. Mudbloods being Wards. Neighbors. I’s be having family serving them. They’s be putting elf heads on spikes when they marched.”

Jason inhales, sharply, but doesn’t interrupt.

“Kreacher escaped with the babies. We’s be running for weeks. Starving. Dying. Little Mistress Ursa went cold minutes before we was being rescued.”

Kreacher holds himself still, unsettlingly so, as he talks. But he is not – afraid, not to talk at least, not to share this.

“Lady Aquila survived. She be bringing the House to great heights. Protecting the family. But she be bringing us to Britain too. And here, Kreacher be keeping the family safe by keeping out filthy blood.”

The Witch Hunts are not something Jason knows a great deal of, beyond the sheer horror and breadth of them. When wizardkind had secluded itself, that change had, for the most part, been retroactive.

No one alive – no human alive – knows with certainty how long the Hunts were going on, how volatile relations with non-magicals were, until it picked up and went down in even nonmagical history as the Witch Hunts. The Statute had swept all that up in its reach, and now – there are only bits left behind. Pieces.

Mugglebaiting got the name from intentional baiting, wizards stepping in to distract mobs and soldiers and killers long enough for their brethren to free captured wizards or steal back corpses. It was still a perfectly valid term in the States, and something the Tribes still had to employ with frequency when some moron hunting something magical got too close for comfort.

There are other bits. Jason has never considered looking into them before; he knows enough. But this –

“Kreacher not be caring about riches or fame or politics. Dark Lord was being right by protecting us. But – “

Kreacher cuts himself off, sharp and brutal.

Jason, slowly, crouches down beside him.

But, then the Dark Lord went mad.

“Harry told me Bellatrix ordered you to lie to him.”

“Missy Bella not being a Black anymore. Not after she be killing the mutt.” There’s genuine grief in Kreacher’s voice. Whether it’s for Crazy Cousin Bellatrix no longer counting, magically, as kin – not after her murder of another Black – or for Sirius Black’s orchestrated demise, Jason can’t tell.

“Master Regulus be worried about the children too. Be protecting Miss Cissa’s baby. Be protecting you. And Young Master be doing the same. Kreacher be thinking that’s enough.”

The house elf is serene, as he finishes, and Jason closes his eyes to the simple devotion on Kreacher’s face.

“I don’t know that I will ever claim him as my father. I don’t think I will ever honor your family in a way you would want me to, Kreacher.”

It will be a goddamn miracle if he ever calls Narcissa something like family, let alone her son – Harry, even, and Neville, despite the fact that Jason has and intends to take responsibility for the both of them.

He’s been burned too many times before.

Kreacher’s hand is soft and papery when it touches Jason’s cheek.

“Young Master be telling Kreacher.” He says, genial and warm as Alfred had once been.

The beautiful glass doors behind them flies open. Bart hangs awkwardly from the handle, form shaking a little. Jason’s not sure if he’s glad for the interruption or not.

“You got a letter!”

X

He does not in fact have a letter.

He’s got a fucking scrap of torn-off parchment with an address scrawled in spidery handwriting. Bart takes one look at it and shudders, full-bodied.

“What the fuck was that?” The speedster gasps, grabbing frantically at Tim, who is squinting suspiciously at the parchment. Jason looks to Hermione – Harry and Neville have already wandered off again.

The kids have been fairly consistent in hunting Jason down every hour or so that he’s present at the house to show off whatever weird shit they find that the Doctors Granger cannot fully appreciate, or to intrude on whatever weird shit he’s doing. They lose interest as quickly as they gain it, so the sudden flight isn’t suspicious.

Hermione’s refusal to meet his gaze is.

“What’s this mean?” Jason asks.

“It means he just keyed you into the Fidelius Charm on Grimmauld, but didn’t remove it. The Headmaster probably expects to convince you to let the Order keep using it.” The last is added hesitantly, carefully, and Jason lets her go. He’s not sure if she thinks he’ll get mad at her, or if she’s just uncomfortable with Dumbledore generally.

It’s probably the latter, given the…everything since his arrival.

Jason scowls at the paper as she scurries away, and then turns his attention to his brother and his brother’s minion.

“Want to blow his magic up?”

Tim’s answering scowl is not dark enough to dim the oh hell yes! that Bart lets out.

X

Kreacher goes to pick up Narcissa and her son. He goes alone, and Harry drags his friends (and Tim) into some over-the-top security prep, because apparently he and Draco Malfoy are sworn enemies or some such. Hermione rolls her eyes indulgently but goes along with it, so Jason doesn’t step in.

Bart goes with Jason, because he’s a speedster and because one of the Young Justice morons need to be there when Jason picks up the rest, and because if shit goes south, Jason will need a fast getaway. Bart calls himself Jason’s favorite with a frankly unsettling amount of unholy glee, and preens.

“You’re a goddamn nightmare.” Jason says, as Bart bounces eagerly on his toes, and Jason raps hard on the door of a hole-in-the-wall bar on London’s outskirts.

Cullen had texted him the address and no further information, so Jason is surprised when he steps inside to see that the place is (a) packed and (b) – obviously not open for business. And clean, but that’s less of an issue with Cullen than it is with his sister.

“Hood?”

The speaker is a gangly woman, hair cut severely at her jawline and bandages wound thick around one arm. She’s got a wand naked in her hand – so do most of the adults close to the door.

There are kids here, though. Elderly. Those without wands entirely. Those who are not human.

“Cullen’s sure got a shit ton of cousins.” Jason says dryly, and some tension in her shoulders ease. She puts her wand away, and the rest follow suite. Bart chirps out a bright hi! and hurtles himself at the nearest sentient being. Jason keeps half an eye on him, but doesn’t drag the kid back when no one seems anything more than briefly startled at his unnatural speed.

She leads him to the bar, to a space cleared especially for this, and although Jason’s skin crawls, he sits. Puts his back to those ringing the room.

“I’m Maddie. Cullen said you put out a call for guns.”

She’s eager. Restrained, though barely. Jason considers her for a moment, considers her allies listening so intently in.

“I got surprise custody of a cousin of mine. He’s a minor, a student at Hogwarts. He filled me in on what he could.”

She blinks, surprised, and Jason leans forward in his chair. Clasps his hands in front of him.

“I’m going to kill the serial child abuser you lot have running your magic school, and I’m going to kill the serial child murderer taking over your government. If you’re Cullen’s cousin, you should know who and what I am, and that I am more than capable in doing this.”

Her smile is a slow thing, sharp. A little bit manic. Her people shift and relax and seem to brighten.

“You’ve come to the right place.”

X

Voldemort, she says, lost the first war. His people didn’t.

Most muggleborn emigrate as soon as they graduate. Post-graduation they have no careers. If they have a job, it’s with a rare sympathetic individual or because the want of bodies has won out over prejudice. Career growth is non-existent. Their applications are routinely binned without consideration, their names officially barred from running for various government positions, and if they live in a nonmagical area – which they most often do, given how small magical communities are and how intense they are about inheritances – they are routinely surveilled, harassed, and abused.

“Our addresses are public records, so the Ministry can better stop any Statute breaches.” She says with a sneer. As he had during the first war, Voldemort had only needed to send a single lackey in to peruse the records. Since the battle that had taken Sirius Black’s life, the attacks have been frequent, Ministry response inadequate, and actual help absent.

The overt blood supremacy and discrimination have ramped up, too.

With political reform entirely barred from them by a corrupt system and fighting back often enough to earn one a snapped wand at best, Maddie and other muggleborns like her had tried to reach out to friends and teachers they thought trustworthy – teachers like their former headmaster. They’d been dismissed, or turned down, or ghosted. Maddie and her folk, those like her, aren’t influential or powerful enough to warrant Dumbledore’s benevolent protection. They are fodder, not pawns.

Madison Row had turned towards other marginalized wizarding groups instead – nearly every magical creature in wizarding Britain’s control, and squibs, magical people incapable of wielding wands, most namely. They’d begun to band together, support each other. Madison Row had begun to organize them, and invited at-risk families to camp out at her father’s bar instead of risking them dying in their own homes. She’d managed to put on a good offense a time or two, although her people had fled before the Aurors had arrived and Dumbledore’s Order had apparently taken credit for their meagre wins.

She just had no experience with warfare or resource management – especially when very, very few of those joining her were warriors. Those with use - those being snapped up by greater powers. When Cullen had texted…

She seems to run out of steam, then.

Jason nods, and looks to her people.

“I don’t know if you know who I am – my name is Jason. I am the Red Hood. I run Gotham’s criminal element. I do not have a wand, I do not use wanded magic, and I do in fact kill people. I won’t take over your operation if you don’t want me here – I can be hard to work with. I don’t need an army. Most of what I need is information. If any of you would rather leave the country, I’ll arrange that. The Tribes will take you in if you talk enough shit about Britain.” There’s some laughter at that.

“Not all of us want to leave, Hood. For some of us, at least – this is our home, whether those assholes out there want us here or not.” The speaker is a tall, gangly man, nearly folded in over himself to stand in the bar. Some kind of creature, Jason can’t identify what.

“We can throw together a plan to deal with the Ministry. I highly doubt I’ll stick around for clean up, but if you lot choose to, I’ll help you tear it down.”

Much as Bruce would like to complain, Jason’s just as good at building as he is breaking – Crime Alley can attest to that. He’ll leave them with a plan, of course. But anything more than that is – too much. Not effort he’s willing to put in, skin he’s willing to risk, for a people that are not his own.

He stands up while they murmur to each other, and they fall silent sharply. Immediately.

“I’m not going to ask you to make a decision now. Maddie knows how to reach me. If I don’t hear from you by the time I choose to take action, I’ll reach out.”

“You don’t know when that will be?”

“Fuck if I know. I have to go steal my goddamn house back from fucking Dumbledore right now, we’ll see if he makes it out alive.” He grumbles, half-distracted as Bart writhes out of the knot of friends he’s made and launches himself at Jason.

Bats might be dramatic as fuck, but they don’t have anything on Speedsters –

They flash away in an instant.

X

Bart’s got a phone with a map app pulled up, and he takes them to a street that shifts and sways around them and it takes Jason a heartbeat to realize that the world is not bending out of sync but that instead space is unfolding in front of him to reveal a –

It’s a haunted house. Ghastly and depressing and gothic, somehow grim despite its perfectly normal twins on either side.

“This is Grimmauld?” He asks. Bart hums.

“I guess? The address isn’t on Google or anything, but this is where it should be, since your children told us we’d be in London.”

Jason reaches over, grabs the kid’s head, and tilts it up. Bart lets out a oooohh.

“Your house is as fucked up as you are.” Bart sounds awed as he stuffs the phone away.

Jason exercises all that caution that Ducra tells him he doesn’t have, and sets out for Grimmauld Place.

He hears the voices the moment he steps off the stoop and into its meager little walkway.

“That motherfucker.” He swears, softly, and Bart flips him a quick salute before vanishing. He’s already memorized Tim’s instructions – because Tim might despise magic, but he knows some tricks that are universal – and will likely snoop around before getting bored and accomplishing his goal. Jason’s technically on a time limit, dictated entirely by a teenage moron.

He shakes his head, and approaches the door the voices are coming from. The door flies open soundlessly before he can even touch it.

There’s a painting of a sour looking woman to his right, her eyes wide and mouth covered with a hand. To his left is a dining room absofuckinglutely packed full of people. He recognizes Dumbledore at the head of the table, the werewolf, the pink-haired woman and her parents. He doesn’t recognize anyone else, although he assumes the gingers are Harry’s Weasleys.

The thing about games is – Jason’s never been fond of them. He wasn’t born rich enough to enjoy the double speak, or taught by men who enjoyed politics enough to show him the joy in it. That’s Tim’s realm, learnt at his mother’s knee, honed beneath Janet Drake’s stiletto sharp tongue and razor quick wit.

Tim will play the game back. Draw things out, just to enjoy the ending more. Jason just wants this shit done and over with as soon as he fucking can.

So he lets Dumbledore speak first.

“Mister Black! I trust you found the place alright?” There’s a bright smile at the old man’s lips, kindly. Jason’s reminded, viscerally, of Deathstroke whenever Dick’s around. Proprietary.

“When I told you to return my home to me, I did not mean hold it hostage.” Jason picks his words carefully, his tone ice. He is, again, dressed in his armor and leathers. Subtle, but the old man’s eyes are sharp and Jason doesn’t doubt that he’s picked them out. So have some of the rest of the people in the room – the Order of the Phoenix members, he assumes. Not enough, though, not for a pseudo-military vigilante organization.

“We merely hoped for a chance to speak with you, my boy. Your uncle was a dear friend of mine. I cared for him greatly.”

Jason raises an eyebrow at that.

“You let my uncle be falsely imprisoned, hunted and tortured for over a decade and you still think you can call him a friend of yours?”

There’s a flinch, at that, and Jason feels his mood sour.

He wishes this asshole would be unapologetic about it. People like that – who don’t care who they hurt – are so much easier to deal with than people who’ve convinced themselves they’re right for causing that hurt. Sacrificing others without their consent. Slaughtering children for the benefit of all.

Bruce can justify himself over and over and over again; all it means is that he’s deluded himself into thinking he’s a good man, that he’s right. Dumbledore’s cut from the same cloth.

It’s exhausting to deal with. There’s a reason Jason’s taken to shooting Batman first, and asking Stephanie questions later.

“What happened with Sirius was a tragedy.”

“So is your continued presence.” Jason says dryly. His attitude seems to throw Dumbledore.

“That is no way to speak to the Headmaster.” The woman who speaks is the pink-haired woman’s mother. Andromeda. His…cousin? Narcissa’s sister.

“You lot are standing in a house you stole and vandalized from a dead man’s estate. You are trespassing on my land, sitting in my dining room, and you have the fucking nerve to tell me to watch my mouth?”

A squat old man more scar then flesh throws his head back and cackles, but his eyes – one glass, whirling madly and the other flesh – do not leave Jason’s figure.

“Take after your uncle then. Good.”

None of them, he realizes suddenly, would know if he took after his father. Regulus Black had died before trusting these assholes. Jason cannot, at this moment in time, blame him.

“We are truly sorry for imposing, my boy, but I thought it best that we have a minute to talk. Britain has found itself in dark times, and you have chosen an inopportune moment to step into things.” Dumbledore’s voice is level, solemn.

A plump red-headed woman stands up sharply, and claps her hands. Her associates seem surprised at her interruption, but she does not so much as blush when they all turn to look at her.

“Jason, was it?”

“Jason Black. You must be Mrs. Weasley.” He’s more civil with her. Harry adores her – and he doesn’t want to judge her or her family yet. Not when even Narcissa had been so fucking blind to the other options she had at her disposal; he can’t imagine Mrs. Weasley being any different.

“Albus isn’t used to speaking to other adults, I’m afraid – he’s been an educator so long, why, he was Headmaster when I was a girl.”

“Now, Molly – “

“Are you hungry, dear?” She asks him. She’s already bustling through the press of bodies, already taking his arm and leading him out of the main hall, away from the dining hall.

Jason’s impressed by her forwardness, and lets her, ignores the half-hearted protests he hears behind him. She takes him on a circuitous route through a dreary, dusty building until they pop out into an absolutely medieval kitchen lit bright with the flames of a wood-fire stove. There are dishes washing themselves in the sink, and a series of platters set out on a counter, all steaming.

“Is he alright?” She whispers.

“He’s mostly excited right now. All the newness. Hermione and her parents are with us.”

The admission is calculated. He doesn’t know if anyone is listening in – doubts it, given how her forced cheer drains away from her – but he still risks it. All three of the kids had vouched for the Weasleys.

“And he’s – away? From his…from those muggles?”

Oh thank motherfucking Christ, he thinks, and his knees nearly go weak with relief.

 A competent fucking adult.

“My brother – we were adopted – had them arrested this morning.”

Molly Weasley looks equal parts heartbroken and relieved.

“I didn’t know it was – that it was that bad, that the muggles would…”

“I had to call my brother in or I would have killed them.” He says. Tests.

She meets his gaze head-on.

“You should have, dear.”

X

By the time they return to the dining room, most of the Order has cleared out. His cousins are left, and the werewolf, and the man with the glass eye. And Dumbledore, of course. Molly bids them all a good evening and leaves herself, and Jason folds his arms across his chest and leans against the doorway. It forces Dumbledore to turn awkwardly in his chair to see him.

“Harry says you’ve known this Dark Lord was coming back since his apparent defeat.”

“We’d hoped otherwise.” Dumbledore sighs, a great, heaving thing.

“And you took no action to ensure he couldn’t. Even now you sit here and do fuck all while he slaughters innocent families. You lot can keep playing hero. I won’t stop you. You’ll just get yourselves killed.”

“This is war, boy!” The old man with the glass eye barks, slapping a hand against his own knee for emphasis.

“And you’re losing.” Jason answers coolly.

“Are you an auror?” The question comes from the pink-haired woman. Nymphadora. Andromeda’s daughter. She’s squinting at him, an odd expression on her face.

“I would literally rather fucking die than be a cop. ACAB applies to magic cops too.”

“Ay – what?”

“You were muggle-raised, then. The Dark Lord is not a simple threat, child.” Andromeda says, matter-of-factly. Jason despairs for a moment, wonders exactly how fucking young he looks – Stephanie had called him an old man last week, isn’t that some indication that he doesn’t have a babyface?

He shakes his head dismissively at her.

“None of you are trained for war. Or, not against a domestic terrorist.”

“And you are?”

“What exactly do you think I do for a living?” Jason asks, after a pregnant pause. Dumbledore’s eyes are sharp on him. Calculating.

“Actually, you know what, never mind, I don’t care. We’re done here.”

“We do have one matter we must discuss before we adjourn for the evening, Mister Black.” Dumbledore cuts in.

“And that is?”

“The matter of young Mister Potter.”

“Ah, you’re right. Thank you for reminding me.” Jason says lightly, and straightens. He reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a packet of parchment Hermione’s father had prepared for him, and tosses it to the old man.

“What’s this?”

“His withdrawal records.” Technically true. Hermione’s are also tucked in there, but that is a whole other can of worms, and Neville’s will follow as soon as Jason has – legally – wrestled him from his grandmother’s clutches.

The werewolf bolts upright.

“You what?!”

“His education won’t suffer, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not going to homeschool the kid. I just have higher safety standards for a school than allowing a twelve year old to fight a fucking Basilisk. Or hiring a teacher possessed with the spirit of the man who murdered Harry’s parents in front of him. Or hiring a fucking domestic terrorist, or a werewolf who forgets his anti-murder potion, or a goddamn sadist who you allowed to torture children unchecked and unpunished for an entire fucking year!”

The silence that rings in the wake of his shouting is – glorious. Dumbledore looks aged, but for as regretful as he appears he is also angry.

Jason turns his head and shouts Bart’s name down the hall. He can’t see it, has no idea where Bart is, but he feels the whicker-snap of Talia’s blade slicing through the magic Dumbledore wrapped the place up in, feels the wards beneath swell as they breathe unhindered, and flinches at the sharp crack of those same wards hurtling his intruders from his halls.

The secret spell would have been a great idea, as far as security goes – if it had been set and managed by someone Jason could trust to handle that shit, if it actually fucked with real space-time and not perception. As it is, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he’ll allow Dumbledore that much power over him or his shit, even if Tim could crack with his tech in fifteen minutes.

“That was badass.” Bart declares, blurring into visibility on top of the table. He’s got a plate full of Molly’s food in his hands.

“Also, this is really fucking good.” The kid adds, and tosses Jason a biscuit. He catches it, and – well, if the speedster’s not keeled over yet with his fucked up metabolism, Jason’ll be fine.

“Shouldn’t have stolen my fucking house.” Jason says with a shrug, and lunges to catch Talia’s blade when Bart tosses that at him too.

Jason waits long enough for the kid to finish eating before locking up the house behind him – like Manor Black, these wards are sharp. Unlike Manor Black, these wards are so lethal that any asshole trying to get in who doesn’t share Jason’s blood will be lucky if their blood boiling in their veins is the only curse they trigger.

“One last stop, and we’re good to head back.”

“Where too?”

“To pick up your fucking gremlins.”

“Fucking finally!”

X

Young Justice is fairly laid back, as far as young heroes go. Much more tolerable than Dick’s bunch, and 100% less likely to include someone that has known his sort-of-brother carnally. Whatever weird thing Young Justice has going on, they’re discrete about it, and Jason doesn’t have to know about his brother’s genitals, which shouldn’t be a reason to hang out with kids like five years younger than him more than people his own age, but the superhero/villain community is painfully small.

Smaller when the Bat himself has you on his shit list. Kids just don’t rebel like they used to.

“Dad’s in town, he got nervous when Tim said we’d lose service, but he did promise to just lurk unless everything goes tits up.” Conner warns him, and Jason can live with that.

He doesn’t like Luthor, but he does trust him, with this at least. Fucker’s the most obsessive and controlling and somehow respectful parent Jason has ever interacted with, and Jason hadn’t intended to effectively kidnap his kid, the one with a fucking magic allergy, to fight a bunch of genocidal wizard nazis.

“Once Tim gets the internet up and running or whatever he can come to the Manor.” Jason offers. Cassie looks surprised by the offer, but Conner just nods and shoots off one final text.

“Who the fuck gave you a kid anyway? Nobody’s told us. Tim’s being an asshole about this.”

“That’s because Tim’s always an asshole. Kreacher, if you can hear me and you’re free, we’re ready now.”

It feels so uncomfortably awkward to just – talk to nothing. But it works; an instant later there’s a sharp crack, and Kreacher is standing right inside their little circle – square? There’s only four of them – and sneering.

“Everybody, this is Kreacher. Kreacher, these are the rest of Tim’s…friends. Conner’s part alien, Cassie’s a demigod.”

It’s maybe not the best policy, to go these people are cool because they’re not instert-word-that-sounds-like-a-slur-for-nonmagical-people-here, but Jason’s…tired.

It’s been a long day.

He’s willing to lose this battle to just get fucking home already.

“Rude. Did you tell him you’re part zombie?”

“I’m not part nothing.” Jason protests, affronted.

“Young Master is a Black.” Kreacher says, just as affronted, at the same time, and Cassie giggles.

“It’s nice to meet you, Kreacher.” She says, and holds out a hand. Kreacher takes it gingerly, and vanishes with her.

“That was supposed to – “

“That was supposed to happen, yes.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Conner breathes, relieved, only to yelp when Kreacher reappears and seizes him by the wrist.

By the time Jason makes it back, the better three-quarters of Young Justice have vanished, and the Manor is dark.

“Kreacher put Miss Cissa in the red room with the little Malfoy. Young Master’s friends are staying together.”

Kreacher does not, Jason notes, sound put-out by the room sharing. He’s still just pissy about the nonmagical thing.

“Thank you, Kreacher.”

“Mm. Kreacher will be making breakfast in the morning. Dobby will be getting everyone. Young Master will be resting now.” The house elf adds, voice sharp, and Jason nods. Doesn’t argue, just treks upstairs to his room.

It is not the master’s suite. Jason suspects his room was a room of another of Kreacher’s more beloved charges; there are still some clothes hanging in the wardrobe, a few half-finished pages of notes in the desk.

But it’s cozy, done in navy and silver and oak, with a door heavy enough to be a barricade all on its own, an attached bathroom, and a window that opens out onto the roof. There’s also a secret passage hidden behind the mirror, which Jason has warded shut so fucking hard god himself could not get through it, and it will remain that way until he can properly investigate all the fucked up secret tunnels the house has.

He's confident there’s no people living in them. The same cannot be said for creatures.

He shucks off his gear, and drops face-first onto his bed. Grabs blindly for the nearest blanket edge and pulls, rolling, until he can hardly breath beneath the heavy weight of comforters and linens.

He’s asleep before he finishes his next breath.

Chapter Text

              Jason gets a reasonable amount of sleep, gets to wake up slowly and lay in bed and enjoy being sleepy for like half an hour, and even gets to roll out of bed himself before the wards start rattling like somebody’s shaking a can of dried beans in his skull.

He flails, surprised and confused, until he remembers –

He forgot to warn Kreacher.

He’s flying down the hall in an instant, dodging startled and aggrieved people – when did the Manor get so fucking full – and swearing like a sailor.

When he finally makes it to the front door, Kreacher is already there, hissing, at a literal fucking horde of redheads.

“I am so sorry.”

“Young Master is having no decency.” Kreacher hisses back, judgmental enough to make Jason cringe, and vanishes. There’s giggling – Jason just barely makes out Dobby’s ears over the stair banister, and a second pop takes the other house elf away.

“Are we early?” Molly Weasley asks, genuinely concerned.

“Ron!” Jason flinches at the scream, and moves on instinct to catch the body hurtling past him. Harry oofs into his arms, limbs haywire, but doesn’t wriggle loose – just clamps on and beams.

“Harry!”

“Ron!”

“Oh for – there are people sleeping still – “

“Not anymore.” Doctor Granger’s shout is more amused than irate, even as Hermione’s run slows into a jog, and she blushes bright red.

Bart flashes into existence to Jason’s left.

“ – gonna set up the internet, is there anything we need to know about the wards?”

“The absolute worst that could happen is you blow up the whole fucking property.” Jason says. He’s more fluent in speedster than he wishes, but it is handy.

“Better hold onto your hats!” Bart says brightly, and vanishes. The assorted Weasleys are gaping – Jason holds up a hand, and internally counts down.

At five there’s a rush of energy, static and sharp and smelling of ozone. A heartbeat later, a triumphant scream of joy.

X

Luthor shows up just as everyone is flopping into their respective seats in one of the formal dining rooms. He walks in like he owns the place, drags a chair from beside Dad Weasley all the way over to where Conner is sitting, and worms his way in between Tim and Conner without so much as a break in his serene expression. Tim rolls his eyes but goes with it. Conner just smiles at his dad.

Jason exercises every ounce of self-control he has not to laugh.

Luthor’s the only one dressed, besides the Weasleys. Jason and Tim are in their clothes from yesterday, everyone else in their pajamas. Neville’s got wild bedhead, and Narcissa looks like she just walked off a runway. The boy at her side – Jason hasn’t been introduced yet, but he assumes this is Draco – is desperately trying to flatten his colics as subtly as possible, all while Harry stares unblinking at him from Jason’s side.

Harry, Jason learnt almost immediately upon Draco’s arrival, has a fucking superpower – for knowing when Draco’s about to open his mouth, and shooting him the most withering looks physically possible. Or for knowing when Draco’s about to move, and narrowing his eyes at him. It’s funny as hell, especially because Draco reciprocates when he’s relaxed enough to.

“They’ve been like this since Draco insulted Ron and I and Harry told him to fuck off first year.” Hermione had told him, before they’d sat down for breakfast.

“I can’t imagine Harry saying fuck.” Jason had answered dryly.

“Draco acted like he did.” Hermione had said matter-of-factly, and Jason had laughed.

Dobby and Kreacher bring the food in – magically – and both refuse to stick around and eat with them when Jason offers. Narcissa looks both bewildered and nostalgic, and Harry disappointed, but no one presses.

“So.” Doctor Granger starts, and then says nothing further, his bravado apparently dying then and there.

“That’s Lex fucking Luthor.” Hermione finally whispers.

“Hermione!”

“It’s Lex fucking Luthor, Mum, I can swear.”

While the Grangers squabble and Luthor preens, Jason suffers the horrific realization that he’s going to have to introduce these people.

He snags the nearest plate of pancakes and takes every chocolate chip one he can find. For support.

“Right. So. Wizards know fuck all about superheroes, so I’m not going to get into the details about it. You can harass the children if you’re curious later.” Jason opens. Cassie groans. Dad Weasley and the two sons who are identical both perk right up.

“So the rumors are true?” Luthor asks, intrigued. Harry bobs his head immediately. Jason’s not sure he even understands the question, but the answer’s right, so.

“Super…heroes?” Narcissa repeats slowly.

“Wizards have kept their magic secret from the rest of the world. Not other types, and not non-magical powers or the like. We’ve got demons and aliens and ghosts and gods fucking around on the regular. Some of those individuals want to kill a bunch of people, take over the world, enslave the galaxy. Supervillains. Others oppose those goals – those who are sanctioned by the Justice League or other official organizations are superheroes. The rest of us are vigilantes.”

Jason gestures vaguely at himself and Young Justice as he speaks. Draco’s eyes get huge. Dad Weasley clasps his hands together, and opens his mouth, and Molly reaches over and gently lays her hand over his mouth without pausing in cutting her sausage into bite-sized chunks.

“I’ve worked with a few, on occasion. Egypt has different rules for cross-contact than Britain does.” The oldest Kid Weasley says. Jason appreciates the implicit support – the unsaid admittance that he’s telling the truth.

“Wait.” The youngest boy, Ron, says. He’s squinting at Jason suspiciously. Jason raises an eyebrow.

“You’re that hoodie guy Hermione talks about. You’re friends with her uncle.”

Jason’s actually, genuinely impressed by that deduction.

“The Red Hood. My name is Jason.”

“Jason Black.” Harry offers giddily.

Molly looks to the Doctors Granger curiously, and Hermione’s father smiles a little.

“My brother Ed – he’s a supervillain over in America. Jason’s a friend of his.”

“I’m a crime lord.” Jason deadpans, when heads swing in his direction.

“Vigilante.”

“Crime lord.” Jason repeats, narrowing his eyes, but Harry rolls his own eyes and Conner starts giggling.

“What exactly does that entail in the muggle world?” Narcissa asks. Besides the tightening around the corner of her eyes, she looks perfectly calm – and Jason suspects its less the topic than that he’s being so open to outsiders that’s bothering her.

“Are you with the Justice League?” Elder Kid Weasley asks. Jason sneers on instinct, and Luthor barks out a startled laugh at the same time Hermione starts giggling.

“I would literally rather die. Useless fuckers.”

“They’re not useless – “

“They’re not very effective, compared to your team or your own individual success rates – and that’s just based off of publicly available information.” Hermione chimes in, and then immediately quails when her mother turns a ferocious glare on her and snarls and why are you looking up effectiveness statistics of American superheroes young lady?

Tim saves her by launching into his typical rant – look it’d take like three days and we could take them all out they’re not all they’re cracked up to be – and derailing Doctor Granger.

“I’m a Bat.” Jason says to the Elder Kid Weasley, and the man’s eyes get huge.

“From Gotham?”

Jason nods, and the Weasley lets out a low whistle.

“Can we eat yet or are we just talking while the food gets cold?” One of the twins asks dryly. He projects his voice loud enough to cut across Tim and Luthor and the Grangers’, as well as the hissing going on between Harry and Ron, with a well-practiced ease.

“Please, regale us with tales of your illegal activities. While we eat.” The other says, grinning at Jason.

“I’ve got this.” Bart insists.

Jason closes his eyes and prays for patience.

X

Molly Weasley had known something was up with Dumbledore, and the Order in general. She had not known what. She had not even known the full truth of what the kids knew, what they’d lived through, and she is so incandescent with rage that the air temperature in the dining room ratchets up enough that Jason can feel his skin crisping.

Jason sits back and listens to the kids meekly spill out their stories, as she all but spits her rage, and he’s content to observe right up until –

“Hold up.”

Harry and Hermione look over at him slowly, hesitantly. Neville is focusing very intently at his plate, as if that’s enough to save him, and Molly’s attention is sharp enough to cut.

“He possessed you. No ritual or anything.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Eldest Weasley – Bill – mutters. Jason presses his lips into a thin line.

“Dumbledore said it was ‘cuz of their connection.” Ron offers, and Jason hadn’t needed that piece of the puzzle to figure this out but it is still helpful – and a test from the kid, how sneaky.

He tilts his head back and glares directly at Luthor.

“If I find out you do anything with what I’m about to say, I will kill you, and I will bury you, and I will show up at your funeral to piss on your memorial.”

“Don’t be vulgar.” Luthor grouses, but he waves a hand and tilts his own head towards his son, and that’s – enough.

It’s going to have to be.

Tim’s already looking like he wants to die.

“There’s no fucking way you know what’s going on.”

“Bitch who is the expert – “

“You didn’t even graduate high school!”

“Neither the fuck did you, dropout!”

“Boys, boys, you’re both pretty and can you please just get on with the existential Gotham horror so we can move on?” Cassie interrupts.

“It’s not Gotham horror. It’s just – “

Well.

Jason scrubs his hands over his face and leans forward, braces his elbows on the table and ignores Narcissa’s disapproving look.

The problem is how to phrase it.

He decides to start with Voldemort.

“I know what Voldemort did because I’ve heard of it before, or at least the same – type of magic. Not all methods of immortality are treated the same – not all of them count as crimes against the balance of the universe.”

If immortality itself was a problem – gods wouldn’t exist, vampires wouldn’t exist, phoenixes wouldn’t exist, the mere existence of creatures that did not age would cause rifts and tears in the fabric of reality itself.

Death does not care if you age or not. Death does not care if you are hard to kill or not. Death wins out anyway – immortality will not survive the cessation of everything, come the end of all things.

Unless it does.

Unless some asshole out there with more ambition than sense tries.

He says as much to those gathered.

“So Death’s…a person.” Harry sounds like he’s testing the words out, looks oddly pleased, and there is another piece of the puzzle Jason hadn’t realized he was looking at.

“Death is an entity. It does not like being humanized.”

“You’ve known how you came back from the dead this whole time.” Tim cuts in. He sounds incredulous. Luthor is staring with a matching look of disbelief.

And.

Yeah.

“C’mon. You know how easy it is to gaslight the whole super community.” Jason pointedly looks at Bart. The speedster grins, slow and dangerous and pleased.

“Would you want Batman to know how you came back from the dead? He’d fucking vivisect you.” Conner points out. His tone is particularly vicious; Bruce had accused Luthor of doing the same shit to Conner, once upon a time. Said he only wanted custody for science. And, Luthor had vivisected people before – but even Jason can, however begrudgingly, admit that Luthor would never do that to Conner.

“Wizards have a hard time making contact with Death. How’d you manage it?” The eldest Weasley asks, thankfully bringing them back on topic. Jason looks away from his brother’s terrors to find the man staring him down, squinting.

Jason lets out a breath.

“Technically, I am a priest.”

X

Harry is content to observe now in a way he never has been before, and he turns this revelation around in his head, examines it, while he listens.

Jason’s talking like an adult, saying things like it has any independent significance and pausing and the adults keep gasping and trading looks – Harry had had to bite his lip when Mrs. Malfoy had made eye contact with Mrs. Weasley and they’d both pulled faces – when none of it matters.

Death is on their side. Death is on his side. And Jason’s. And Jason’s the Red Hood, and Voldemort is terrifying and powerful and he’s going to be absolutely useless in the face of Harry’s – cousin.

Ron slides Harry another biscuit, and he smiles and starts tearing it into little crumbs over his plate. He would have shredded his napkin, but Kreacher had given them cloth ones and growled when Harry had touched them, so.

Death’s whole thing, Jason tells them, is the gathering of souls. Reaping, in popular culture. Guiding, in most religious contexts.

“I think wizards are stupid, but you lot are right to be so wary of soul magic. There’s no um, bright line between the okay shit and the stuff that’ll put a divine bounty on your head. Sometimes it’s the way you do something, or your motives, and not the action, that will mark you.”

“We’ve – I’ve – seen evidence of that in the pyramids. But no one’s ever managed to quantify what makes a difference.” Bill interjects. He looks excited, like Ron does when he’s playing a particularly intense chess match. Harry studies his best friend’s older brother curiously. He swings his attention back to Jason, and finds Jason flicking his fingers dismissively.

“The point is, Tommy Boy did something to his soul. That would have been enough to piss off Death, but then he made the mistake of going after Harry – maybe his parents, too.”

Harry has not heard Jason’s voice this gentle before, and it takes him a second to process his words. He tenses, when he does, feels his blood run cold – but –

Death is on their side.

Death has been on their side.

Mum’s sacrifice, all that love, something any other mother would have for her child except –

Except this time, it was enough.

Maybe it wasn’t. Or, maybe it wasn’t her love alone.

“Can we ask?” Harry asks. His voice is – small. Too small. He doesn’t recognize it, wouldn’t if he couldn’t feel his mouth moving. All the wizarding adults are looking at him with huge eyes. Draco looks disgusted – and that helps calm him down, just a little bit, because that’s grounding.

Jason just nods like it’s no big deal.

“I can show you how later. But that’s – not necessary for this.”

“For Voldemort.”

“Yeah, but – “

“You can’t imply Death sent you to deal with him and then dismiss its help!” Bill bursts in, disbelieving; Harry flinches at how loud he is. Jason’s face does a funny thing, and he looks sidelong towards his brother, who has both hands pressed together in front of his face, staring directly at Bill with the kind of long-suffering expression Ron only gets when Ginny’s about to start another fight.

“What in the actual fuck makes you think I need help, let alone from Death itself, to take down motherfucking Tom?”

Harry’s only ever heard this much derision before from Snape – he’d flinch, but Jason’s expression is so amused –

“You just – “

“He’s an abomination, not special. Fuck’s sake, Trigon didn’t even warrant Death’s personal attention and he’s interdimensional fucking Satan.”

“Jason’s trying to say there’s no possible way he can lose.” Red Robin interjects half-heartedly.

“What’s Riddle gonna do, kill him?” Impulse asks, audibly amused, and all the non-wizards at the table snort.

Harry’s – warm. Pleased. A little shaky.

Sirius was the only adult who ever really – tried to protect him. And Sirius hadn’t been able to do that much. The attempt alone had meant the world to Harry, and this –

Jason would not be here if it weren’t for Sirius. Yet another way his dogfather has looked out for him, prioritized him, cared for him.

But Jason’s going to be able to end all of this. And Harry – Harry hasn’t been this hopeful in a very long time.

“There’s a reason we don’t fuck around outside our wheelhouses, for the most part. I, especially, don’t get involved in shit outside of Gotham anymore. Wizards probably retreated for the same reason – you’re a big fish in a little pond right now. Exposure to the other forms of magic and tech out there makes you a small fish in a fucking ocean.”

And Jason, Harry suspects, is a very large fish.

He leans into Ron’s side.

“Well, dear, that’s nice and all, but it doesn’t tell us what you need from us.” Mrs. Weasley interrupts, before much more shouting can occur.

Jason shrugs.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“How okay you are with me killing Albus.”

X

“So your cousin’s kind of terrifying.” Ron says conversationally.

“I’m so glad.” Hermione sighs, draped over the table between them.

“You’re all fucking insane.”

“Nobody asked you.” Neville mutters. Draco scowls at them.

“He’s going to kill Dumbledore.”

“Yes, well, decapitating child abusers is kind of his entire career. He should be good at it by now.”

“Do you think he’ll kill Snape too?” Neville asks.

“Oh, absolutely.” Harry says, fervent, and Ron hums.

“I like him.” Ginny announces.

Draco’s expression morphs into one of pure and utter outrage.

“He’s my cousin, you don’t get to like him!”

X

“Albus will be harder to kill than Voldemort.” Molly Weasley says shrewdly. Her husband shifts uncomfortably where he stands against the far wall; Doctor Granger is quick to step up to his side and start asking inane questions about wizarding bullshit. Jason owes him, he thinks.

Dobby is watching the kids – allegedly – and all of the adults, Tim and Cassie are holed up with him in what Jason assumes is the master study. Unlike Bruce’s, which is directly off Wayne Manor’s library, Manor Black’s master study is in its own private room, with a separate layer of wards. It’s a big, imposing room, still cluttered with the previous occupant’s notes, and Jason itches to get into it all, but –

“I don’t see why you want him dead in the first place!” Bill, the eldest Weasley, keeps his volume down, but he does not bother to hide how pissed he is.

“You’ve never dealt with a man in a position of power who actively endorses child abuse, even if he doesn’t raise a hand against a kid.” Jason says flatly, and that shuts him the hell up.

“You don’t really think Ginny got a diary with a part of Voldemort’s soul through the wards at Hogwarts without getting caught, do you?” One of the twins asks, cold as ice, and all of the wizards in the room flinch.

“Well. As I was saying. If you want to take them both out, dear, you will need to handle Albus first, and go immediately to Voldemort after. Albus will be at Hogwarts, now that the Order isn’t welcome at Grimmauld. That may pose a problem.”

Hogwarts – the Headmaster’s seat of power.

“I can issue a formal challenge. If the castle is sentient – it should be less pissed about the bloodshed. As long as I don’t have to, uh, stick around.” Jason offers. Narcissa looks pleased.

“I don’t know what the fuck that means.” Tim says flatly.

“A – formal challenge. You use magic to list out your grievances and tell somebody you’re gonna fuck ‘em up. If they beat you, your claim’s resolved. Useless unless there’s other magic involved that might pay attention or interfere – such as the whole ass magic school he’s running.”

“They’re a bitch.” Cassie says solemnly, and Tim scowls but squirms closer into her side and drops it. Thank fuck. The least enjoyable thing Jason can possibly conceive of is trying to explain magic to Tim – or at least this type of magic, the type he knows, because Tim is perfectly competent where it counts but he’s also a pedantic little shit that must be contrary or die.

“Dumbledore’s like, insanely powerful. Hermione said you fight with muggle weapons – all he has to do is summon a stone wall or something to stop you.” It’s the other twin who speaks. Jason studies him and his brother, the intent look in their eye, and smirks.

“Wizards don’t do area-of-effect spells. You need ritual magic for that, runes, extra shit. I’ll be up close and personal before I attack. He doesn’t think I’m a threat to him personally. I can dodge if I have to, but he won’t have a chance to get off more than one or two spells before I stab him.”

“With your anti-magic knife?” Cassie asks, curious.

“With the All-Blades.” Jason says, shaking his head, and she lets out a low whistle.

“Just in case?”

“Just in case.”

“You’re going to stab Albus Dumbledore with a sword.” Bill says, disbelieving, and Jason rolls his eyes and summons them. Lays them out on the desk in front of him. No one recognizes them on sight – they wouldn’t, the All-Caste is a secret cult – but the Doctors Granger perk right up and scramble over. Ed’s doing, he assumes.

“The All-Blades don’t hurt the innocent. They’ll just – pass right through you. But if you’re evil – and I mean, evil, none of that Catholic sin bullshit, we’re talking made an impact on the balance of the universe evil – all it takes is a cut and you get your ass sent straight to Death. Courtesy of the Jason Todd Express.”

The All-Blades are the merciful option. Essence wields their twins – and the Blood-Blades just consume the souls of evil, pour their energy into a kind of eternal, never-ending torment unfathomable to the mortal mind. Jason might be the most unforgiving of the Bats, but he is the nicest of the All-Caste.

Molly’s expression softens into something warm and sweet – just in case, if there’s a factor Jason doesn’t know about, if Dumbledore hasn’t been endangering and neglecting kids like a toddler in a toy store, no mistake will be made. Dumbledore will be fine.

It’s not a lot. Not really a comfort, especially to a family that is already at least peripherally aware that Dumbledore kind of sucks. But it’s something, a failsafe Jason’s used time and time again when something in Gotham is going too fishy to suss out but too dangerous to wait on better intel.

“He broke into my house and stabbed me with them to let me know he wasn’t dead anymore.” Tim offers blandly. Both twins burst out laughing.

“And I’ll do it again.” It was hard to get a drop on Tim at the best of times; Jason’s not above shamelessly abusing the natural instinct to freak out when being stabbed against his little brother for his own gratification.

“These are what you will use on the Dark Lord, then?” Narcissa asks gently, hands folded in her lap. Jason wouldn’t stop any of those gathered from touching the Blades, if they wanted, but he’s – kind of glad nobody does. The Blades don’t judge a lack of empathy or thought-crime or anything insubstantial like that; they only judge action, motive in some attached sense. But out of everyone present, Narcissa’s the most likely to have casually done War Crimes. Molly’s too family-focused. Anything she’d have done would have been on the up-and-up, at least legally, and there is a correlation between ‘things society finds acceptable’ and ‘things that don’t piss off Existence’.

“I’m planning to take him up on his offer to meet after Dumbledore’s dealt with. Hopefully your husband will be there.”

She smiles at him, touched.

“Okay, that’s cool and all, but your second kid has to be dealt with too, probably before you, y’know, blow up the wizarding government. Adoption requires filing paperwork.”

“Second – oh, you mean Neville? How wonderful! Arthur can help with the paperwork, he works at the Ministry, you know.” Molly gushes, clapping her hands together.

Jason dismisses the All-Blades as the subject turns, and listens while Molly forcibly drags her husband into a conversation with Tim – and Narcissa – about the legal kidnapping of a child. To Arthur Weasley’s credit, as soon as he hears that Jason intends to remove Neville from his grandmother’s custody, he looks relieved and throws himself into the conversation with unparalleled enthusiasm.

Augusta Longbottom will be a right bitch about it, mostly for the sake of pride and because as terrible as she is, she does in fact care about her son’s child. Not her grandson, but her son’s child, Narcissa is quick to clarify with a particularly vicious, sour set to her mouth.

And – they handle it all, mostly without Jason’s input.

It’s nice.

X

They all follow Harry and Jason out of the house, trickling out one by one while Jason hunts down a big stick and starts scribbling in the dirt. Harry ignores the eyes on them, listens intently while Jason narrates what he’s doing and why – no wand, residual magic will contaminate a circle like this, so we’ve gotta do it all manually.

Harry runs to find rocks when he’s told to, and candles, and a shallow dish filled with water, and even runs all the way to Jason’s room to dig through his bag for an odd little charm, a sliver of crystal dangling from a leather cord.

Jason’s at ease doing this. His expression is clear, the tense set to his jaw that seems a permanent feature gone, even when he’s muttering at the ground. He’s been derisive of wands and wizard magic in general for so long that it’s odd for Harry to see his new guardian so relaxed about it now – even if it is unlike anything Harry’s ever heard of.

Jason arranges the stuff, and then has Harry sit in a particular place in the circle, and then drops unceremoniously down in front of Harry. He crosses his legs, and after a heartbeat, Harry copies him.

“We’re not doing anything flashy or complicated. Just – close your eyes. I’m gonna ramble. And then we’re gonna ask how to get you unhooked from Tom.”

Jason had been insistent the connection was the result of soul magic, just as insistent as he’d been that he had no idea of any further specifics. Hermione had immediately made for the library, but Jason had again told her no – that he’d just ask.

Pointed out that Harry wanted to try talking to Death anyway as if it were – nothing.

Why hadn’t Dumbledore done this? Or something like it – even if Jason knew to do it because he was a priest, surely Dumbledore had some idea that other types of magic existed? Dumbledore was on the ICW – one of the few British wizards to have constant foreign contact. He had to have known.

In retrospect, a lot of fourth year makes more sense now too – casual references by the visiting schools, the strange spells Fleur and Victor had used during the Tournament.

“Okay.” Harry breathes, and closes his eyes.

Jason rushes through a whole bunch of rhythmic chanting in a language Harry doesn’t recognize, pauses, takes a breath, and then says in a dry, casual tone – is now a good time?

Harry has to bite his lip to stop himself from giggling – and then an eye opens.

The hair on the back of his neck and down his arms stands straight up. He becomes immediately aware that there is something paying attention to him. Looming over him, boxing him in at all sides. Something unfathomably large, stretched past the material world around him –

- and it is fond.

“Hi.” He says, an echo of Jason’s own greeting.

“The kid wanted to speak with you, if you can spare a couple minutes.” Jason’s voice is – warm. Violently present. Harry hardly feels the weight of his own flesh and blood anymore, but wherever he is – so is Jason.

“Jason said you knew my parents.” He whispers.

The eye rolls closer to him, the weight above him pressing harder down on him. His bones scream in protest but –

Greeted death as a friend, the youngest did –

The cloak thrown about the shoulders of a tall, elegant woman and the man at her side, shorter, with hair so wild Harry can’t help but recognize it, the man beaming and the woman smiling with more reserve.

Potters are friends of death, another man says jovially, but there’s gravity to his words and the boy looking up at him, Harry’s hair and Harry’s nose and Harry’s mouth and Harry’s build –

The Potters are the only family to retain its favor, to honor it. An individual coming back – that’s not unusual but for a whole line to be all but owed the curtesy –

Give my hello to my son, James Potter asked, corpse still warm and his killer striding up the stairs behind it. Let me stay with you and give my hello to my son –

Give my hello to Harry, Lily Potter begs, if that is something I may ask of you, her corpse still beneath the feet of the man raising his wand against her only child –

And it agrees.

There is a moment – an instant – where the babe is not alive, where he is nothing but flesh and bone and still blood, and the Dark Lord shatters and there is an object right there glittering with power, a black hole fit to devour all in its presence, and –

The Killing Curse works so well only because there is a guarantee; if the spell does not succeed, it turns its slaughter back on its caster. You must be as willing to die for your kill as you are willing to kill.

There’s a sensation like fingers, tracing down everything that makes Harry Harry. Nails, catch on something that isn’t Harry.

I want to see you grow, the eye says, or the thing the eye is part of says, warm and loving and sweet.

“Thank you for showing me.” Harry whispers. He tastes blood. He tastes salt.

“I’ll take care of him.” Jason says, just as soft.

I know you will, dear one.

And it – vanishes.

Harry opens his eyes to red.

X

“That went better than I thought.” Jason says. Bill Weasley turns to look at him, incredulous. Cassie, on the other hand, starts nodding.

“Hell yeah it did!” She’s holding the magic what-the-fuck-ever box Bill had produced after Harry’s forehead had opened up and a black ball of Evil Tom Bullfuckery had come out – Death had wrapped it all nice and neat into a marble, and Cassie is shaking the damn thing violently like a maraca while Molly casts a bunch of medical spells on a still-disoriented Harry.

“That thing was tied to his life force!”

“Does Death like herb bread?” Neville asks, contemplative. He’s got an arm looped through Hermione’s, pinning her at his side, while Ron hovers around his mother. Draco is hiding behind his own mother, looking pale and kind of sickly. Narcissa’s got her held tilted, squinting dangerously at the box.

“And now it’s just tied to Tom’s, so we can track the fucker. Death doesn’t eat, but I’m sure it would like offerings. We can set up an altar later.” Jason adds, glancing at the kids. Hermione stops straining so hard, relaxing a little bit at the promise.

Harry’s still crying and bleeding all over the place, but Jason’s not super concerned. With the dark magic gone from his scar, his body’s going to purge any tainted tissue or blood or whatever before any kind of healing magic will take to it. The result is horrifying to look at, but not dangerous. If the soul-bit had been bigger, the purge could be life-threatening, but it’s tiny.

Probably means there are other soul shards or bits or whatever that Jason’s going to have to track down, but that won’t be hard with one already in his possession.

“I know you’re all upset right now or whatever but this is probably the most tame thing we’ve dealt with all year, so, freak out on your own time.”

“This is much more boring than I expected.” Luthor muses, where he’s hovering over his own kid.

“Most magic is.” Cassie confides. Hermione whirls on her, protesting.

A hand touches his. Jason looks down. Kreacher is staring steadily at the box in Cassie’s arms.

“Young Master be coming with Kreacher.” The house elf says firmly, and – Harry’s in good hands, the kids are alright, Cassie knows not to fuck with the soon-to-be-dead guy’s soul. And Kreacher looks grave.

Jason nods slowly, and follows.

X

“Young Master need to be knowing how Master died.”

What a fucking opening. Jason sits gingerly, slowly, on the couch Kreacher is pointing viciously at, and nods just as carefully.

Kreacher hesitates a moment – uncharacteristically unsettled, uneasy, shifting foot-to-foot and not looking at him directly. There’s a moment where Jason thinks he’s going to have to prompt Kreacher into speaking, but then Kreacher physically steels himself and snaps his fingers.

A locket appears in Kreacher’s other hand, and Jason lets out a soft oh.

“Dark Lord was needing a house elf. Master offered Kreacher – but ordered Kreacher to come home. Kreacher was not supposed to live. If Kreacher hadn’t, Master would be living.”

There’s something beyond just survivor’s guilt in Kreacher’s voice, and it grows worse – the certainty, the grief, the rage – as Kreacher continues his story. An island within a cave, water bloated with corpses, a poison strong enough to shatter minds. And a locket. Gaudy, ugly, and so steeped in dark magic that Kreacher hurts himself to touch it.

From what Narcissa had said – Jason’s father had already been on the fence, if not waiting to jump. This – this had provided him an opportunity to strike back rather than just run away, and at the first chance of tangibly harming the Dark Lord, Regulus Black had not hesitated for an instant.

The knowledge – twists something in him. Aches, fiercely. Maybe Regulus Black would have been a father worth knowing – and Jason, at least, knows he’s come by his own righteous fury honestly.

“Master called it horcrux.” Kreacher whispers to him, before folding the locket into Jason’s own hands.

“Thank you. For – telling me. And for – honoring his last request.” Jason says quietly. Kreacher’s ears flutter, wet gaze flickering down to the carpet.

“This one – this one, at least, we can go destroy now. If you’d like.” Jason offers.

Kreacher’s attention snaps back to him. His smile is slow, tremulous – and then fanged.

“Kreacher be liking that.”

The next fifteen minutes prove that – good news – the All-Blades are more than sufficient to destroy Tom’s soul bits. Unfortunately, Molly’s youngest child takes one look at the dissipating black smoke and goes huh, looks like the diary, and while they’d obviously suspected, having actual confirmation of what exactly had been possessing their daughter her first year at Hogwarts is a whole other shitshow.

Jason thinks he loses his hearing, what with all the yelling.

X

Things move quickly, after that.

He scries for Tom’s soul. One in Hogwarts, one in Gringotts, one in some tiny rural town in England, two in what Narcissa confirms is her husband’s home.

He decides to handle Gringotts, while Bill, Molly, Narcissa, and Young Justice go for the rural one. The kids are left under the supervision of the Doctors Granger – Luthor left citing a business meeting, while his son exaggerated mouthed weapon smuggling over his shoulder – and the house elves. Dobby will not enforce any sort of authority over Harry, at least – but Jason trusts Kreacher to stop the kids from burning the house down.

“I have business with your manager.” Jason says, when the teller asks him what the fuck he’s there for. The goblin squints at him, but reluctantly leads him to an office and shoves him in.

The goblin inside the office is sharpening an axe.

“You accuse Gringotts?” The goblin asks gravely. Jason almost rolls his eyes.

“The man who murdered my father hid a horcrux in your bank, in the vault of one of his followers. I have legal claim over the vault in question – Bellatrix Lestrange’s incarceration in Azkaban severed her marital ties to House Lestrange and returned her property to House Black. I assumed you would want to be informed about the sudden dark magic backlash your bank will experience shortly.”

The goblin continues staring at him, whetstone still dragging across the axe’s edge. It’s a good axe, too, beautifully crafted and five times the size of the goblin.

“If I have to slaughter my way down there I will.” Jason says flatly.

“All-Caste scum.”

Jason puts the rest of Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault in Neville’s name, pending a formal grant of custody, and uses Talia’s dagger to sever the curses layered atop its contents. He considers seeing if Talia’s dagger would kill the horcrux, but better safe than sorry – the All-Blades slice the thing in half smooth as butter, and screaming black mist dissipates as if it had never been there.

Jason’s feeling pretty fucking pleased with himself by the time he gets back.

Goods news. House isn’t on fire.

Bad news. There is a plant trying to drag a Weasley twin out of a third-story window.

Good news. Kid’s screaming is mostly laughter.

Jason elects to ignore it.

X

Harry insists on a fire, the night they destroy the ring and the remnants of his scar.

Kreacher and Dobby refuse to buy the marshmallows from a store, and get downright vicious over whose recipe is better; Harry tricks both of them into agreeing to teach him, so he can properly choose a winner.

Hermione teaches the other kids how to properly roast marshmallows. Conner gest marshmallow in his eyes trying to roast them with his heat vision. Bart burns his hand tripping near the fire; Neville falls asleep on Jason’s side during Draco’s ghost story, much to the other boy’s indignation.

The Weasley twins turn the Manor’s windows into self-contained waterfalls while trying to set up some kind of confetti blaster, which is so far beyond anything and everything Jason knows about magic that he defaults to ignoring it. Tim gets so pissed about the whole thing Cassie has to carry him inside and forcibly burrito him into bed.

Ron preforms a surprisingly well-done distraction while his little sister breaks into Jason’s room; they pull it off so well Jason doesn’t even let on that he knows.

It’s a good night.

X

Arthur Weasley finishes the custody paperwork.

“Augusta might start cursing you.” The older man warns, fretful and nervous as they apparate to an old brick building tastefully drowning in greenery. It’s a beautiful place, with solid wards, but it also radiates a chill that kills any sort of homey association Jason could link to the property.

Wizard magic, at least here in Britain, seems particularly keen on lasting emotional imprints. He can taste the electric grief of torture on his tongue, even this far from the building. No wonder Neville’s grandmother’s batshit – she’s been wallowing in ghosts his whole life.

“I appreciate your help.”

“Oh, Molly would have my head if I weren’t – and in this, at least, you’ll have no argument from me.” Arthur adds, and pats Jason’s arm gently before rapping at the door. Jason thinks what an odd man, not for the first time since meeting Arthur Weasley, and then the door opens.

A house elf so elderly it makes Kreacher look young looks at them blankly, and with a wheeze gestures towards the depths of the house.

It leads them on a slow, meandering path, all but gasping for breath at the exertion, to the ugliest goddamn sitting room Jason’s ever seen in his life.

Fucking wizards – he realizes, distantly, that he’s going to have to let the kids decorate their own rooms, but also, distantly, that he’s going to have to chase any decorating ambitions they have into those rooms and those rooms alone with a fucking flamethrower, or he’ll want to gouge his own eyes out in his own fucking home.

“Arthur.” Augusta Longbottom is as stiff and sour as she’d been at the will reading. She’s dressed, despite the early hour, probably in appropriate garb for wizards. She looks ridiculous – but at least the hat is missing.

“Augusta! Good morning. You’ve met Jason Black, I believe.”

Her eyes are shrewd, appraising, when they turn to him. Jason meets her gaze, visibly unimpressed.

She could’ve been a wonderful guardian, he thinks, and that’s the worst of it. The worst part of Bruce – that he had been. The worst part of Regulus – that Jason is beginning to think he would have been. But it’s an old grief, not one he considers more than a moment.

“You’re the one been housing my fool of a grandson.”

She’s sitting on a plush armchair, arrayed with three other armchairs around a circular table set for tea. Jason drops into one of them, as casual as Arthur is formal, and stares her down.

“Someone has to, and it clearly isn’t you.” Jason says coolly. She bristles.

“If the boy’s such a coward that he runs away – “

“A child who runs away from an abusive home is no coward.” Jason interrupts, and that – shocks her silent. Arthur produces the paperwork, and sets it neatly in front of her with a warm smile. His easygoing-ness is unsettling; not weaponized like Dick’s so often is, but still a tool.

“We can go the public route if you want. I know wizards don’t particularly care about child abuse or neglect – but I do. If we were in my city, I would kill you and be done with it, but Neville seems to think you’ll improve as a person once you no longer have control over him.” Not that Neville has told Jason that. Jason’s not even sure the kid’s genuinely aware of what he’s doing – he hasn’t hidden it, exactly, but Neville’s been glued to Harry and Hermione and the Weasley kids since Jason picked him up. Doesn’t want to be left alone with an adult, Jason figures, and he isn’t going to push against that.

“How dare you.” She breathes.

“Take a magical oath that you have never intentionally hurt or neglected the kid and I’ll retract my previous statements.” Jason deadpans.

She looks, for a moment, like she is going to. She raises a hand, wand clutched tightly in it, opens her mouth – and goes still.

Her magic, likely warning her – magic doesn’t want to let go once it sinks in.

Arthur looks old, aged beyond his years at the sight. Jason just – watches. Because she could rage, could deny it – but this is the face of a woman smarter than that. Horrified by her own truth.

“I didn’t ever…”

Oh, thank fuck. He hadn’t been sure the oath thing would work, not with Britain’s weird fucking wizards – doesn’t even work on Essence when she’s accusing him of stealing the last bit of Ducra’s kaju barfi. Or on Tim, but that fucker’s a businessman before Bat – he could write a contract fit to trick the Devil if he so chose.

“I don’t intend to keep you from contacting him. It’s looking like I’ll be staying here in Britain, at least part-time, for the foreseeable future. I’ll insist on supervised visits, at least at first – and I know he wants to see his parents. He doesn’t want to go without you.”

The grief that statement brings to her face is – gut-wrenching. She closes her eyes, breathing shaky. Jason doesn’t have much empathy for her – can’t, not really, not with what he does, in his line of work. He’s not really one for second chances when kids are involved, not unless the kid asks and even then – most parents in Gotham he goes after are too involved in shit that’s way too fucked up to let back home.

Ron had pulled him aside that morning, before they’d left. He still needs her, he’d said, and it shouldn’t be on a kid to beg for the life of –

He’s pissing himself off, Jason realizes. Doesn’t matter too much – Augusta lowers her wand, folds her hands in her lap, knuckles white with pressure.

“You’ll take care of him?”

His nod is a slow thing. He doesn’t doubt she’ll flip shit on him sooner or later – his intention to remove the children from Hogwarts, for one. Teaching them non-wizarding magic, for another. Probably, conning Ducra into opening the Fields of All for temporary training.

But –

For now, that seems to be enough for her. Her hands shake as she summons a quill, but she signs the paperwork without another word.

She pulls herself together just long enough to inform him that she and Neville will be visiting Saint Mungo’s at the week’s end.

Jason agrees. He doesn’t say that somebody will be going with them.

X

Molly accompanies him to Hogwarts.

She apparates the two of them with ease, smooths a hand down her skirts and takes his arm in her own.

She is a housewife. She has spent the past decade and some change rearing her children and caring for her home. She is a plump woman with round cheeks and calloused hands, clothes mended one-too-many times and age apparent in the laugh lines at her mouth and eyes, and before all that – she was a general.

He’d thought Narcissa to be like the women he knows, but it is Molly who wears a calm smile, entirely at ease despite the weight of his weapons pressing against her side. Molly, whose eyes have been hard since Harry had taken her aside the night before.

“My children are my world. All of them, whether mine by blood or bond. Cedric was – he and my boys grew apart as they got older but I changed that boy’s diapers, kissed his bruises and bandaged his scrapes. Harry had to watch him die.”

Her voice is as measured as her pace. The castle looms large before them, and Jason keeps his eyes on it, not on her.

“The death of a child is – a whole different sort of grief than any other.” Molly says haltingly, and he sees her look to him out of his peripherals.

Tim is a fucking meddler, he thinks, but she had also watched he and Harry, and – she’s a sharp woman. He would not put it past her to realize this all on her own.

“My adoptive father used to be a good parent. Tim says my death changed him – I don’t know if I believe that, not fully. But Tim’s the only one of our siblings who noticed.”

It isn’t that he doesn’t keep an eye out for the others – it’s just that the others will never back him, never come to him, never believe him. Tim doesn’t talk about it with him, but Tim, at least – Tim works with Jason. Never comes to him, not for Bruce, but he does tend to leave the city when Jason and Bruce start going at it and…well. Tim wouldn’t be here if he didn’t believe Jason.

Molly smiles. It’s a humorless thing.

“That sounds like a challenge, dear.”

“You…want to go fuck up Batman.”

“I will. Harry deserves a proper family. And – don’t tell Narcissa, of course, but I did know your father.”

Jason…blinks. Stumbles. Stares at her.

“Weren’t you in, like, competing houses or something at school?”

“I was prefect his first year. Your uncle and I never got along, in great part because I had to pick up the pieces of an eleven-year-old child whose elder brother, who he idolized, called him an evil little cunt for hoping to Sort with the rest of their family.”

Oh. Ooh.

“Sirius grew out of it. If he’d lived longer – maybe I would have been able to forgive him. Move past it, for Harry’s sake if nothing else. Merlin knows that poor man suffered more than he deserved. And I don’t want you to think the worst of him. He died for Harry, died saving my son. I can’t help but love him for that.”

The grip on his arm is more a bind now, something to keep him from squirming away.

“You knew about me.”

“I didn’t know that you’d – returned. Else I would have sent you a letter years ago, dear. But someone had to Imperious your…what was the term, egg donor into…sensible action. My brothers helped muggleborns flee the country, before they died. I took up their work after, until the war ended.”

Ah. He should have been afraid of her the minute she first uttered good in his family’s ancestral home. His mistake.

“Sheila – I don’t know what her name was, I don’t care – she was the one to sell me out to my killer. She…watched. Didn’t expect him to kill her too. And I have never forgiven Bruce for burying me next to her and daring to put mother on her gravestone, when the woman who raised me sat in an unmarked grave across the city.”

The world’s greatest detective. Either he’d never investigated Sheila, or he had and didn’t care. Jason can’t bring himself to believe Bruce is the kind of man to hold blood above all else, not when he’s adopted so many children, when he calls Alfred father, Clark brother, Diana sister. That kind of enforced ignorance would have, perhaps, been better, but…

Molly squeezes his arm tighter. Leans up and presses a dry kiss to his cheek.

“I’m glad she’s dead, dear.”

Aw, fuck, he’s tearing up. Jason’s still blinking like a maniac when they get up to the front doors of Hogwarts – and it is a beautiful building, wards like home and steel trickling over them critically. Not as pleasant as Manor Black’s, but Hogwarts is meant to nurture as much as it is protect – it isn’t meant to be a permanent home. Jason prays it doesn’t try to kill him. He’d hate to leave it a ruin.

The doors swing open at their approach with no one there to greet them. Molly takes point, and Jason’s dragged along past portraits alive with moving figures and staircases twisting and twining in the air above them. She takes him to a great hall just off the main entrance, ceiling brilliant with sunlight and fluffy clouds. The room itself is empty but for five long tables, four decorated with specifically colored banners and a fifth set across the far wall, facing the others – a staff table.

Dumbledore is standing at the far end next to a tall, greasy looking fucker Jason pegs immediately as the infamous Snape. Both men turn as they approach, Snape sneering and staring directly at Jason, Dumbledore barely hiding his surprise, eyes on Molly, before a warm smile stretches across his face.

“Molly, my dear. And young Mister Black!”

He sounds pleased.

Big fish, little pond. Man’s never been challenged before, not successfully at least. Doesn’t think many are capable of it – certainly not some no-name bastard of a boy dead before his time. That Moody bastard probably realizes Jason’s more than he seems, but Jason suspects they think military, non-magical military, not crime lord.

“We have some questions for you, Albus.” Molly’s voice remains kindly and warm. Disarming. She learned that from her husband, Jason would bet.

“And you allow some arrogant brat to demand the Headmaster’s time?” Snape’s voice is silky, dangerous. Dude’s got his scare-the-fuck-out-of-kids act down like a science; Jason’s only ever heard such controlled vitriol from Barbara when she’s talking to him.

“Well she couldn’t answer my questions about horcruxes, and suggested I ask Dumbledore before I go asking Aunt Cissa.” Jason drawls.

He sees the change in Dumbledore immediately; the shift in his body language, the smile that vanishes off his face. Sees the man realize Jason is a threat, a player, no pawn – and sees him register the implicit threat in Jason’s words.

It’s not a threat. What newfound pseudo-nephew-cousin-whatever wouldn’t go to his more experienced kin for answers? Molly has diverted the Malfoy influence – but only just, only barely. It’d be more suspicious if Dumbledore knew Narcissa and Draco had fled the Dark Lord, but…Jason’s not sure he does.

“Where did you hear that word?” Dumbledore thunders. Even Snape looks startled by the sharp change in his demeanor, half-recoiling from Dumbledore’s side. Molly frowns disapprovingly.

“I’m a priest.” He says. It’s a non-sequitur for the uneducated. For most of the educated too, he supposes. The rage seems to flood out of Dumbledore at Jason’s words; he looks like the confused old man he is.

“I was appointed to my position. I’m not particularly religious or spiritual, I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself. But I do take my duties seriously. Molly says you’re an accomplished academic, the leading expert on most forms of magic here in Britain. So why did I recognize what was going on, when I’ve known the kid a week – and you, who’ve known him years, couldn’t figure it out?”

Molly pats his arm reassuringly, as if she’s calming him down. Mostly, the movement is a cover to extricate her own arm as if he’s been holding onto her, not the other way around.

“You told the boy?” Dumbledore whispers, hoarse, shocked, pale. Jason raises an eyebrow in answer, and the old man sags against the table behind him.

“You’ve doomed us all, Mister Black.”

“Oh, Albus, don’t be so dramatic.” Molly scolds him. Snape boggles at her, eyes all but popping out of his skull, which is…not a flattering look on an already unflattering man.

“Dram – Molly, Voldemort knows now!”

Jason blinks at the man. Molly does too, expression screwed up in confusion, and then – her face smooths out. He makes the executive decision to let her handle this.

“Albus, dear, Jason removed it before explaining anything to Harry!” Not that Jason wouldn’t have explained it all, but…that was technically true.

“I certainly wasn’t going to let a parasite like that stick around.” Jason mutters, but Dumbledore’s already shaking his head. He lurches forward, towards them. Snape catches him. Greasy asshole looks afraid.

“You – you removed it?!”

The Headmaster looks like they just told him his entire family died horribly.

There was a prophecy, the kids had told Jason, and he’s…not liking the picture Dumbledore is building here.

“You don’t seriously think leaving a horcrux inside a child is in any way healthy? Or, you would, wouldn’t you? Considering you left it there in the first place.”

The asshole flinches. Snape – jerks back a little.

“How many horcruxes were made?” Jason asks. He drops the thin act he’s been utilizing, shifts his shoulders and spine into a more imposing stature. He’s an imposing motherfucker when he wants to be, after all.

Dumbledore closes his eyes, looking pained.

“There are – six. Eight soul shards in total.”

“Eight?”

“The diary.” Molly’s voice is frigid. Dumbledore’s nod shows his age, every aching moment of it.

“Harry, Tom, the diary, the cup, the locket, the ring…one in Hogwarts, and…the snake, I’d guess.” Narcissa had told him about it, a great thing Voldemort both obsessed over and ignored in equal measure, as if believing she was indestructible but fearing she wasn’t. Wasn’t too hard to connect the dots.

“That sounds reasonable, dear.” Molly’s still pissed as fuck – that Dumbledore knew what her daughter had been exposed to and done nothing. That Dumbledore had let it run rampant amidst the entire student population for an entire year, too.

Dumbledore’s eyes pop open, stare at him in shock.

“You don’t have anything new to tell me, then.” Jason concludes. A little disappointing, but not a great surprise.

“My dear boy, if you know – “

“With that taken care of, “ Jason continues, speaking right over the old man, “ – I have one last bit of business with you.”

Both assholes look confused.

“The rampant child abuse and neglect, dears.” Molly offers up pleasantly.

“I think there’s some ceremony you lot recognize for it, but we do things differently where I’m from.” Jason adds, and stretches. Molly pulls out her wand and holds it delicately, tip glowing, and smiles at him.

Gotham at least, values intent over respect. No I call upon Magic or I hereby denounce or a list of titles a foot and a half long. Just focus. Just wrongdoing. Just –

“If the two of you have done half of what my kids have accused you of, you die. If you’ve done that shit to any other child, you die. And if by some chance my kids are evil geniuses who’ve fabricated the Cerberus and the possessed teacher and the Death Eater and the werewolf and the forced participation in a death match, the sanctioned torture of children under your roof, the forced return to abusive homes – you get to live. But, gotta say, I doubt it.”

The All-Blades are warm in his hands. Snape recoils, a pathetic parody of Dumbledore’s earlier lurch into the table. Dumbledore stares at the swords in horror. Not recognition, not quite, but – with some vague understanding of what Jason can do.

“You would see Voldemort kill us all.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Albus, dear. You aren’t quite that important.” Molly says disapprovingly.

“Molly – “

“You let You-Know-Who possess my daughter, Albus! You kept my children in a school with a rampant basilisk without informing us! A possessed teacher – a Death Eater! Cedric was murdered under your watch, Harry kidnapped – and then you let that Ministry bitch torture my children!? You split my children’s blood!” Jason assumes the last bit, shouted from a suddenly red-faced and furious Molly, holds some kind of magical meaning, because her wand starts sparking and the whole shock-and-fear thing seems to run its course.

Dumbledore lifts his own wand. Must have been hidden in his sleeve; Jason hadn’t seen him grab for it. Snape, at the same moment, slashes his through the air and hisses a curse – not towards Molly, but towards him.

Jason ducks under it, moves forward. He’s between Molly and Dumbledore now, but Snape’s pinned against the table, nowhere to run.

“You – you’re mostly for Neville, honestly.” Jason says. He’s not sure if Snape hears, not between Molly’s roaring and Dumbledore’s bellowing, but Dumbledore apparently hears, because there’s a sound reminiscent of a concussive blast, just at the strength level of a wet fart, and Snape goes flying, ass over tea kettle, robes over his head, out of Jason’s way. He turns, partially, to find Dumbledore casting something at him. Raises his eyebrow, and then hurtles one of the All-Blades at Snape.

To the man’s credit, he attempts a shield of some sort. It does fuck all, but it is a pretty good attempt, looks very cool winking out of existence as the All-Blade embeds itself hilt-deep in his chest.

“I suppose I should introduce myself properly before you die.” Jason says, as Dumbledore shouts a dramatic no! to his pet asshole’s corpse.

“My name is Jason Todd. Jason Black, now. I am the Red Hood. I make a living hunting rapists and child abusers for sport, and you, motherfucker, are on my shit list.”

“Your uncle would be ashamed of you.”

“Sirius Black called me here knowing what I’d do.” Jason responds flatly. He doesn’t care what Sirius knew of him or believed or thought or hoped – complicated feelings about parental figures aside, he has no attachment to the Blacks and their overly complicated shitshow.

He’s used to his enemies making digs where it hurts; about his death, about Bruce, his siblings. About his failures, the kids dead before he managed to instill some kind of order into Gotham or the people killed in retaliation for his existence. Used to his enemies calling him mad, an animal, the sort of crazy that should be put down.

He’s used to his enemies hurting him. A lot of the adrenaline and tension of a fight just kind of…fall flat without any real risk to be had.

“You’ve as good as murdered Harry, by removing the horcrux from him! And without Severus there to guide –“

Molly hits him in the face with a spell, and Dumbledore’s head jerks back. There’s a crack, a crunch, and a whole ass motherfucking bat crawls out of Dumbledore’s left nostril, tearing the flesh and clawing at his cheek as it writhes its way free of its confines in a spray of blood.

Jason looks to Molly, bewildered.

“My daughter invented that one.” She says shyly. Fondly.

He darts over to the dead – no, not dead, but dying – professor and yanks the All-Blade out of him; it comes with a death rattle in the form of lily and naught else, which is, yeah, no. Jason’s not going to fucking touch that with a ten-foot pole.

He turns back to Molly’s duel to see Dumbledore summon a phoenix.

X

So here’s the thing.

Phoenixes are, technically, immortal.

They are symbols. Their origins and mythologies vary place to place, but no matter their nature or personality, they all have rebirth in common. They may serve judgement on others, may serve good – may serve a greater good at the cost of all else – may believe the ends justify the means or dedicate themselves wholly to the kind of saccharine kindness Gotham is incapable of recognizing anymore – but –

They are, inherently, Death’s creatures.

A phoenix does not break the natural order; it is merely part of it, and must respect the rest of it no matter how antithetical to a phoenix’ own nature that rest is.

Dumbledore summons his familiar to bring the might of flame and fire down on his former ally and the boy she stands with, and his familiar answers, because Fawkes subscribes to the same ends justify the means approach that has seen Dumbledore sacrifice the health and wellbeing of generations of children, and Fawkes appears –

And Fawkes cannot move against one sacred of Death itself, there on Death’s orders and serving Death’s purpose. Fawkes does not have the ability to, not with Death’s eyes over the boy’s shoulders, watching, daring, because for this boy Death has torn reality asunder before and for this boy Death will do so again.

A phoenix is an ant compared to that might, that power, that right.

So Dumbledore summons his familiar to lay waste to his enemies, expecting action and carnage. Fawkes appears – and Fawkes balks, recoils, fears so strongly that Dumbledore feels it as if it is his own.

The resulting misstep is all it takes to lose him his head.

X

“You let the phoenix go.” Molly notes. She looks perfectly serene at his side, despite the blood splatter on her face and dress. Jason’s fucking dying, these goddamn stairs are going on for fucking ever-

He’s been talking shit about all these British wizards since before he arrived, and he’s not about to stop now, but at least they can all handle stairs, because god fucking damn.

He’s pretty sure it’s because Hogwarts is pissed about the murder(s), and he’d take it over the building trying to kill him or whatever but still.

“You worried?”

“Phoenixes are revered things to wizards. And for one to be a familiar – well. I don’t know what Fawkes might do.” She sounds actually worried, which is sweet. He lets out a breathy laugh as they come up on the final fucking landing, and sags against the wall.

“It wasn’t afraid of me, Molly. It might come back later for revenge, it might not – but it’ll have more to contend with than an admittedly fantastic crime lord if it does.”

“Is this about your priest thing, dear?” She asks. He nods. He could shrug – it might’ve been the All-Blades alone that freaked the bird out, he’s not sure – but it’s as good a guess as any.

She lets out a skeptical hum only a mother could make, and pushes past him.

After they’d finished decapitating Dumbledore, she’d had the stones to call for one of Hogwarts’ house elves to ask about the horcrux in its walls. Jason doesn’t even want to know what the damn thing deals with on a daily basis, because it looked at the corpses and frowned but did little else but tell them to go to the seventh floor and hurry it up – their welcome was running short.

“Where should we start looking?” He asks, falling in step behind her.

“Oh, well, the twins think I don’t know about their experiments, but I do read their journals fairly regularly. After they tried to have Ronnie swear a wizard’s oath – anyway. They made mention of Come-and-Go Room…” She trails off, coming to a halt in front of a truly horrendous tapestry, and frowns at it.

Jason studies it for a moment and snorts.

“Gotham’s got – R.O.U.S’s. Ever read the Princess Bride? Our sewer rats are genuinely the size of ponies, and most of them are sentient. They’ve got a colony or some shit under one of our old bowling alleys. Trade the junk they dig up out of there for people food. I once gave them three hundred dollars worth of Bat Burger to find a couple kids who got lost down there.”

“That’s horrifying, dear.”

“Might just be relatives of your trolls. They certainly look similar.” He muses.

Molly closes her eyes, wand tapping at her lips idly, and then spins on her heel sharply. She paces in measured, forceful steps up and down the hall three times, and then there’s a door. When she opens her eyes, she smiles to see it.

Jason has no fucking clue how anybody would’ve ever figured that out without being told; good on her kids for whatever devilry they’d had to do to find it out.

She leads the way into a room filled with junk.

“Accio Tom Riddle’s horcrux.” She casts. There’s a pause, her wand raised still and silent, and then she growls. Holds her wand higher. There is the faint sound of crashing; Jason realizes then that he can’t see the back of the room, there’s so much shit in the way, and then Molly is straining and the crashing is growing louder.

When the horcrux finally reaches them, straining against her magic all the while, it stops fighting and shoots forward like lightning directly towards Molly – and Jason steps up, neatly slicing the thing in two before he can even register what the horcrux actually is.

Two halves of a crown hit the ground, and Molly starts cackling in time with the screams of a ruined soul.

X

RH: hey maddie go fuck shit up in fifteen

MR: hood?

RH: one down one to go

MR: Thank you.

X

From Hogwarts, Jason’s got just enough time to get back to Manor Black and regroup with everyone before having Kreacher apparate him to Malfoy Manor.

Narcissa had sent an owl to her husband earlier that day informing him that Jason would be by to talk. Narcissa had not burned her bridges when she’d fled with her son; she’d merely left and hadn’t returned, and given that it’s only been a few days – given that no one had made a substantial effort to hunt either of them down – there’s a fairly good chance Tom and his morons will still be receptive to meeting with Regulus Black’s son.

Dude’s obsessive, after all, and Regulus had been one of his favorites.

“If we do find the snake, what are we going to do with it?” One of the Weasley twins asks. His mother is not happy he’s going, nor that his brother is, but due to some complicated sibling fuckery their presence had served to keep the youngest Weasleys at Manor Black without argument. Unlike the rest of the kids, both redheads are bound and determined to kill a man before they turn sixteen. Having seen how well – read, poorly – this same argument worked out with literally every single one of the Bats, Jason’s deeply impressed.

“Fiendfyre.” Bill says immediately.

“Don’t worry about the Manor. Jason’s kindly offered to house us.” Narcissa says serenely. Molly smiles, apparently charmed by that.

“It’s so nice to see her making friends.” Arthur whispers to Doctor Granger. Jason makes directly eye contact with Bart, who promptly spins on his heel and buries his face in Cassie’s shoulder to muffle his laughter.

“Will that work?”

“I did some research while you were at Hogwarts. As long as you completely destroy the vessel, the horcrux will die, ergo, fiendfyre will be sufficient.” Hermione’s voice hardly hitches at all when she says the name of her school. Former school.

Shit, that’s something he’s going to have to worry about soon. Maybe Ducra will take them on? That’ll be a good idea for any muggleborn or creatures who don’t want to put up with magical Britain, after all this is sorted.

Might even solve the All-Caste’s personnel problem too.

His gaze travels to the rest of the kids.

Conner’s staying behind, given his whole fatal magical allergy thing. He’s not as pissed about it as Jason would expect, but, then, he’d made the mistake of mentioning Ma Kent’s apple pie and Harry had all but tackled him – the kids are going to be driving Kreacher insane in the kitchen while the adults go do some reverse uno domestic terrorism, murder and mayhem. Jason’s pretty sure the idea is to have a celebration feast when they get back, which he’s all for, because it gives the lot of them a valid reason to skip out on any kind of clean up.

“Are you sure you want to come?” He asks Tim anyway. His brother rolls his eyes.

“Dobby’s going to take me and Cassie to your local friends after everyone gets set up. I’ll help them organize.”

“Kreacher gave you my extra C4, right?”

“It’s all packed up.” Tim affirms, patting a bulky satchel at his hip.

If Jason were a shit brother, he’d bring up the last time Tim used copious amounts of explosives to take out an organized pseudo-government, but apparently mass murder doesn’t break Bruce’s rule if Bruce isn’t physically there to see it, and Jason respects the fact that the kid’s gaslit the piss out of everyone to ask about it too much to push about it. Jason only knows the facts because he still has regular contact with Talia.

None of Young Justice is there to commit murder, but none of them seem all that put out that their allies will be going for kill shots. Cassie’d said something about needing some assholes to question. She had not at the time of that statement caught on to the whole, ‘the actual government is a target too’ thing, but she hadn’t been wrong to consider that either.

“After this, you’re buying me these fucking magic bags.” Tim adds.

“Deal. Are you going to stick around after?”

“I think we’ll be in and out. I don’t want anything to do with your cousin and I know you’ll call her after this is handled.”

“Essence is…well, yeah, okay, but it isn’t like she’s going to do anything to you.”

“I have a strict no cults allowed policy within twenty yards of any member of Young Justice.” Tim says dryly, darkly. Jason would point out he’s a little fucking late at that, but Tim’s a vicious little shit when he wants to be.

“Are we ready to go?” Narcissa looks happy. Jason had been leery about letting her jump into the line of fire in the first place, but she and Molly had provided a united front. Narcissa knows the fucked up evil fire spell. Can’t control it, doesn’t expect to; just hopes to cast it on her husband’s house and leave.

“I think so.” Bill Weasley says.

He sounds excited.

X

A tall blonde man with a cane is waiting for him, when Jason trudges up to the gates of Malfoy Manor.

Walking might’ve been a mistake after all them fucking stairs at Hogwarts, yes, but he’s vain enough to appreciate the effect it gives too much – and, of course, the subtle fuck your magic bullshit.

He doesn’t think Lucius Malfoy gets it, exactly. He’s unsure if the asshole’s just underestimating him, or if he’s just that thick despite is alleged political prowess, but Malfoy Senior does take pains to stay polite.

“You are Regulus’ son, then.”

“Lord Jason Black.”

Lord, like he needs a fucking pompous-ass title, but it means something here in magical Britain, and if he’s going to even insinuate that he was raised properly, by these asshole’s standards, he needs to use it.

Narcissa’s husband looks like he has a lot to say, but he only reaches out and seizes Jason’s upper arm in a bruising grip.

“I appreciate your hospitality. Your willingness to meet with your newfound family.” Malfoy’s words are deliberate and low, weighted. His eyes are empty. He lets go of Jason’s arm before Jason has a chance to respond, turns sharply on his heel, and waves a hand at the woods in front of them. Malfoy Manor appears in a wash of showy magic, and he sets out.

Jason ambles after him, almost amused. Malfoy might be a coward, but at least he gives a shit about his family. Insufficient care – Narcissa had made an off-hand comment the other night, about the foreign properties her husband’s family owned, would’ve been easy to send the kid there with some fabricated business or political proposal, call it a learning experience – but care nonetheless.

“Your father was a dear friend. He is missed.” Malfoy bites out, stilted and strained, as they step through hedges grown into the shape of various magical creatures and a veritable sea of white peacocks. For all the splendor and money put into the place, the misuse is obvious – blood and feathers, broken corpses of birds and burnt circles where fires once sat. The unnatural silence of nature taking heed of a predator, and the shadows cloaking the house proper.

“I hear that a lot.” Jason murmurs.

Malfoy leads him into a grand receiving room, and Jason realizes these assholes think he’s there to join their fucked up cult, because there’s Tommy, noseless and all, lounging in an ostentatious throne with a big ol’ snake wrapped around him, and a whole array of psychos lined up on either side.

Snivelly dude who looks part rat – would be Pettigrew. Woman who looks uncannily like Regulus – Bellatrix. She’s the only woman present. There’s a dude who screams werewolf, yellowed teeth and nails and furrier than any non-were has any right to be. Lucius takes his place beside two men Jason assumes are related – maybe the Lestranges? – and the only man in the room who looks halfway intelligent.

“Jason Black. My dear Regulus’ only son. Be welcome.” Tom has a speaker’s voice, low and sibilant and clear. Now Jason believes Harry’s stories about the Diary – about a boy with charisma, who knew how to use it. Shame what had happened to the kid, but Jason doesn’t revise his estimate of the…man? Thing? Construct? Asshole.

“Really rolling out the red carpet for me.” Jason says slowly.

The plan had been to meet this asshole outside the Manor, presumably without the snake. Everybody’s gonna just. Break in at some point, with the whole lot of them right here in the middle of the Manor.

He’ll be able to handle it just fine, this is just – exhausting.

“For the son of one of my most faithful, my dearest of devotees? I would do nothing less.”

Tom’s eyes are starved things, roaming over Jason’s face. Picking out similarities, he’d guess. Seeing Regulus Black in him.

“Aunt Cissa said he was a particular favorite of yours.”

“Of course Cissy would hog you all to herself.” Bellatrix’s voice is soft, almost wistful. She’s as hungry as her master, looking at him, but her eyes are wet with unshed tears even if her expression could have been carved from marble.

Ew. Oh, this is uncomfortable. Jason hadn’t been expecting that. He’s never gonna get the heeby-jeebies out of his skin. Fuck, even Sionis isn’t this fucking creepy and he oscillates between wanting Jason’s to call him daddy and wanting Jason tortured to death.

“She’s been a great help at explaining the situation here to me. I knew very little about magical Britain before coming.” Jason replies.

“American, are you not?” Tommy Boy sounds a little irritated; Jason looks back to him and the man quite visibly calms down. Ugh.

“I was born and raised in North America for most of my life; I lived with my step-mother and grandmother near Nepal for a while.”

“Ilvermony then, eh?” Werewolf asks, chuckling. Jason pauses a moment, considers whether feigning a magical education would be in his best interests, but shakes his head.

“My grandmother taught me herself.”

“I don’t know of any British families with Nepalese roots.” Tom murmurs aloud; but he’s not suspicious. His gaze is distant, thinking, a crease between his eyes. Jason’s appalled that the fucker has memorized enough genealogy to speak so authoritatively on the matter, but – racism manifests differently in Britain than in the United States generally; he can’t imagine how weird it is in magical Britain.

“I don’t know of any British families named Riddle.” Jason replies, just as evenly.

Tom is not the only one to go rigid; Bellatrix, the smart-looking dude, Pettigrew.

There’s a ripple of magic; faint, this far out. Jason tilts his head while those arrayed out in front of him twitch, and laughs.

“Always the efficient one, isn’t he?”

X

The Ministry collapses in on itself like an optical illusion, a tower of dominoes, a trippy kaleidoscope of brick and metal and linoleum. It goes uniformly, floor by floor, and Tim stands on his tiptoes at the edge of the sinkhole, peering down into it curiously.

“Should start a business or something. Magical demolition’s a hell of a lot easier than the normal way.” Cassie says at his side, one hand on his elbow to keep him steady.

“You don’t think it was too much?” The girl who asks is about two feet tall, with long, pointed ears and fangs for teeth, and a green blush on her cheeks. Part-goblin, Tim thinks; one of the teenagers who’d snuck by Maddie’s adults-only ban by virtue of her talents being irreplaceable. Goblins are master crafters by nature; tunneling is in their blood.

“Not at all! It’s pretty to look at too.” Cassie gushes, and Tim tunes out of the conversation.

There hadn’t been much of a fight. They’d just…snuck in. The Ministry hadn’t been proofed against squibs, or all creatures – just the most visible, the most obvious; giants, werewolves, trolls, and goblins. Not against house elves, not against half-breeds, and not against any of the less well publicized species. With their resident demolition expert at the helm, all they’d had to do was place the C4, stand back, and watch.

Maddie’s people had evacuated those they knew weren’t compromised, and sounded a general alarm only after the initial exodus has passed by successfully. That alone showed more foresight than Tim had expected.

“This is boring.” He finally says. Jerry-rigging internet through Jason’s fucked up anti-tech magic house had been harder.

“It’s a little disappointing.”

“Maybe Hood’s having more fun killing Voldemort?” Cassie offers.

“Yeah but we’re not.”

“You stole his wallet though, right?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Cassie gestures around them, to the untouched splendor of magical Britain’s major shopping district, the terrified former-Ministry employees huddled up under storefronts and the even more terrified civilians hiding behind grubby glass windows.

“Retail therapy.”

Tim’s a rich kid. Has been his whole life. He doesn’t need to steal his older brother’s credit cards and magic coin purse to afford things.

But he is morally obligated, as a mildly inconvenienced younger sibling, to do so. And it isn’t like Jason can’t afford it, what with the whole ‘consuming powerful criminal empires whole and charging the rest with taxes like a fucking nutcase’ thing.

He sighs wearily.

“You’ve convinced me.”

X

“What did you do?” Bellatrix asks. She looks lost. Jason raises an eyebrow and shrugs.

“Suppose I should introduce myself. You know how exhausting that is? To have to introduce yourself – and this is the second time today! I’d forgotten about that. Don’t often leave home, you see, and everybody knows who I am there.”

He keeps his eyes on Tom as he talks. Feels something strike out, sharp and hard and violent, at his mind – but despite his reigning crown as family disappointment, Jason had still taken the same lessons under Uncle J’onn that all the other bats and birds had as a child. He still kept up on the practices, nearly religiously thanks to the Pit and his bad luck with supernatural bullshit, common sense, paranoia. Tom doesn’t even leave a scratch.

The snake’s hissing.

“My name was Jason Todd. Jason Wayne. I am now Jason Black. I am the Red hood of Gotham, I am the first mortal to join the All-Caste, I am the wielder of the All-Blades, and I am beloved of Death. And you, Tom Riddle, have not only pissed Death off, you’ve pissed me off, because I am also the legal guardian of the fifteen-year-old kid you’ve been trying to murder!” His voice rises as he speaks, a necessity to be heard over Werewolf’ snarl; the fucker lunges at him, and Jason puts a bullet between his eyes. Doesn’t even need to be silver; he’s not transformed.

“You dare betray me?! Betray your own father?!” Interestingly, Tommy Boy doesn’t seem to know which offends him more.

“Regulus Black died stealing one of your horcruxes and setting up a hunt for the rest of them, asshole. He betrayed you first. And, to be clear, I hadn’t even heard of you before like a week ago.”

Tom screams that he’s lying and starts flailing his wand. Jason shoots the two probably-brothers dead before he has to dive out of the way of a whole barrage of green spell fire.

Pettigrew makes a run for the nearest doorway, form rippling and shrinking, and he almost makes it before a heeled foot comes down right on top of him, skewering him straight through. Narcissa shimmers into visibility above him, looking viciously pleased.

That draws Malfoy and Bellatrix’ attention. A gaggle of gingers burst in through another open door, and the smart looking asshole whirls on them, the snake streaking from Tom’s throne to help.

Tom finally rises and starts down towards Jason, and Jason jumps to his feet.

Tom’s not speaking English anymore; broken Latin and hissing Jason assumes is parseltongue make an unsavory combination when the guy’s screeching it and spitting all over the place.

He’s quicker than Dumbledore was; sharper too. Tom’s wild, unpredictable, savage, he’s not spent decades shaping his fighting style for theatrics and impressions and awe. He goes straight for the throat.

Unfortunately, he’s still a wizard. A wizard supremacist.

Wands could be a force to be reckoned with, if the wielder had training and could use more than a stick for combat and defense. A second weapon, physical fitness, distance rather than a close-quarter fight, something – that would have ranked Tom as a Threat rather than an inconvenience.

Jason drops one of his guns doing a wildly inappropriate split to avoid a killing curse, and when he brings his leg down, whips one arm forward, All-Blade screaming into existence in his free palm.

He’s inside Tom’s guard, now – Tom has been advancing relentlessly, and Jason hasn’t been running. The All-Blade twitches, and the top half of Tom’s wand drops to the ground with a soft, barely audible rush of feathers. Tom’s eyes get big, but an ear-piercing scream tears through the room, and they both jerk towards it.

Molly and her eldest son have the same bored expression on their faces, twirling their wands insistently, as two creatures composed entirely of flame circle and snarl around the snake, compressing her into an ever-tighter ball. Some kind of feathered feline, and some kind of fucked up looking reptile with too many jaws for comfort. The snake’s scales are blackening, peeling, flesh shriveling and flaking to ash.

Smart guy’s dead on the floor, severed into three pieces and lying in an ever-growing pool of blood. There’s a corpse, being gnawed on by tiny fuzzy little balls of flame, stretched out to the left of the snake. Bellatrix and Narcissa are…fighting? Screaming. There’s spells but neither are going for the kill.

“I want you to know – Death might’ve sent me, but I’m here for Harry.” Jason’s voice is loud, jarring; the room’s not quiet, not by any means, but the area around them is still.

Tom’s breath hitches. He lifts a hand, weakly, and sears himself further fluttering his fingers against the All-Blade’s length.

Britain’s most feared Dark Lord slides off his blade like any other man would, and dies in an ignoble heap of limbs and robe on the floor of a dead man’s manor.

“Where are the kids?”

“There were prisoners, downstairs. They’re escorting them to the ward line, and will call the house elves from there. Dad went to supervise.”

The fire reptile thing writhes itself into a smaller and smaller ball, thrashing harder all the while, and then sort of zoops out of reality, fucked up noise and all. Jason winces, and Bill lowers his wand and turns to him. Kind of freezes, staring, and Jason follows his line of sight to see Bellatrix in a crumpled, sobbing heap on the floor, staring at her dead boss’s corpse and Narcissa holding her gently.

Jason’s long since had to perfect his what the fuck look, a necessary requirement for any up-and-coming crime lord in a city so insane its vegetables do in fact try and kill people. Narcissa looks exasperated, but shoots him a similarly perfected what was I supposed to do look, and –

“Well she can’t come back to the Manor, Neville will ask me to kill her and then I will!”

“Bella and I will go to Grimmauld then. Spend some time trying to recover.”

Jason highly doubts Narcissa will kill her sister if Bella proves incapable of recovering; this is a fucking headache waiting to happen, but –

He’d feel like too much of a hypocrite to tell her no, and also, Bellatrix hasn’t done anything since he arrived.

“This is going to bite me in the ass.”

“Are the children clear, Bill?” Molly’s voice is weirdly serene, and Jason forgets about the whole Black family shitshow immediately because she’s threading her fire cat through the walls in slow, deliberate patterns like it’s nothing.

“Uh….yeah. Time for us to go.”

Molly looks almost regretful, before lowering her wand; and the flames burst to life with a scream.

They don’t leave immediately. Or, they do, they have to haul ass through the house, but – the fire doesn’t stop with the house, it grabs onto the garden and the peacocks and the fountains and statues and walls and all that fun shit; they stand outside the wards, which somehow contain the whole mess, and watch it eat itself into oblivion for hours.

“Narcissa dear, why are you barefoot?”

“Did you really think I was going to keep those heels?”

X

The formal-est of the formal dining halls has been aired out, cleaned, and opened when they finally return to the Manor. The long black wood table the runs the whole center of the room has been polished to a brilliant shine, and a runner of black fabric painstakingly embroidered in arcane sigils and symbols sits pretty in the middle of it. The runner is buried beneath more food than Jason has ever seen in his life.

Harry looks ecstatic to see them, doesn’t seem to care about the blood and smoke and ash they’re all covered in, and would’ve shoved them all into seats if Narcissa and Kreacher hadn’t put their feet down; Kreacher threatens to kill anyone who sullies the nice furniture with filth and Narcissa outright orders Jason to go clean himself up.

He’s reminded so viscerally of Alfred that he gets homesick; doesn’t protest at all.

Tim bursts into the bathroom while Jason’s still in the tub, Cassie trooping in after him with an armload of fabric.

“I’m naked.”

“You’re in a bubble bath, Mister Big Bad Scary Hood. Anyway! When you’re done put this on.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“Wizard clothes. We tried to find vaguely tolerable ones as far as practicality goes for you but I still want to see your cousin’s face when you wear them.”

“The only upside to being legally dead is not having to attend any of those fucking Galas and you want me to go full dinner party in my own house?”

“You wouldn’t attend Galas even if you weren’t legally dead.” Tim snipes back, and then the bastard grabs the clothes Jason had brought to change into and his dirty clothes and marches out, Cassie giggling behind him the whole while.

X

Practical does not go with wizard clothing all that well, but Jason supposes he’s judging before he knows what spells have been woven into the fabric; no need for Kevlar when you can just enchant your cotton into deflecting bullets.

He’s got a long tunic-like shirt and pants tight enough that they look more like skinny jeans than slacks, both in the same shade as that vanta-black paint Dick had given Stephanie for her last birthday, with sliver detailing, and no underwear because fuck you, apparently. His robes are open-faced, silver with black detailing, and his boots some kind of shiny fancy magic leather. It looks halfway decent, but Tim’s got an eye for this kind of shit – there’s a reason his undercover aliases are still uniformly viable where Jason burns his like cigarettes – so that’s no surprise.

Narcissa loses her shit when she sees him – apparently the designer is all wrong and the embroidery an insult to witches and wizards everywhere and don’t even get her started on the cut; the color is the only thing she approves of. She leaves before eating, another change of clothes laid over her arm – for her sister, who is allegedly already at Grimmauld waiting. Kreacher has been informed, and although the house elf had looked disgusted – he’d also looked sad, and a little relieved. Jason hopes Kreacher stays away and he never has to hear another word about the situation, but he’s got low expectations on that one.

Narcissa, of course, looks flawless in another fancy dress robe; everyone else is in a collection of the most atrocious patterns Jason’s ever seen before in his life; his eyes bleed all through dinner and he squints at most of them just to make it through. Magical clothing has moving patterns which make things all that much worse; one of the twins’ robes has the uncanny effect of making people nauseous, and they last fifteen minutes before Doctor Granger gets sick in a flower vase and Molly makes the kid take it off.

“I’m not eating this if I don’t know what it is.” Jason announces, but he is tempted. Like the restaurant Narcissa had met him at, the entire spread is filled with unfamiliar ingredients; roast and bird, salads and mashed something-or-other, fruits and breads. He recognizes Harry’s herb bread, and Ma Kent’s apple pie, but he’s leery of guessing what anything else is.

Kreacher clears his throat imperiously, and snaps out a roll of parchment. Harry giggles into the sleeve of his robe as Kreacher reads out the whole long list of what he’d made, and has to be forcibly shushed by the littlest Weasley kids when it’s Dobby’s turn to do the same.

Kreacher’s apparently still irritated that threstral’s not on the table, but had felt it too much of an insult to feed Jason and Harry a creature beloved of Death. Draco looks horrified when Dobby announces he’d made some kind of pie that had been a favorite of Draco’s grandfather, and one of his own favorites to bake – and Jason will eat anything but whatever intestines are inside that fucking thing are glowing, and any Gothamite past the age of three knows not to eat glowing meat.

The meal itself is jovial and loud; everyone recounting what they’d done that day.

The Manor’s strike team had gone straight for the dungeons upon their arrival, which were located fairly close to the bad parody of a throne room Jason had been taken to; they’d heard the chatter and stormed in after sending the kids out.

The kids had taken the prisoners to Saint Mungo’s, which had fallen to Maddie’s people shortly after the Ministry – fallen was perhaps too strong a word. The magical nazis apparently ran Saint Mungo’s primarily by ignoring it and then running in screaming to grab whomever they decided was a mudblood once a week. Anyone with half a brain cell had stopped going to magical Britain’s only hospital, save for magical nazi sympathizers and healers who took their oaths seriously enough to risk their lives.

Maddie’s people had taken the prisoners in, gotten them the necessary medical care and started trying to contact families. Their takeover of the Ministry had been a roaring success; Tim and Cassie had spent maybe an hour with them and apparently gone on a shopping spree, which had both served to calm tensions and bewildered too many witches and wizards for any real protests to take root.

The Doctors Granger had kept the kitchen blood-free. Well. Human blood free, and elf blood free. Apparently the magic birds or whatever sitting plump and roasted in the middle of the table hadn’t been quite so lucky.

“Hogwarts is a shit show, by the way.” Arthur’s had too much to drink, he thinks, because the man’s face is red and he’s swearing; his kids, even Bill, all jolt and whip around to stare at him in shock.

“Why?”

“You left the bodies in the Great Hall! I got a Patronus from Minerva while we were in the dungeons – she’s losing her mind.”

Minerva. He squints at Arthur, until Hermione wriggles enough to catch his attention. McGonagall, she mouths, and oh, that’s where he knows her name from. The lady from Gringotts. The professor.

“She’ll be fine.” He says dismissively. And if she isn’t – it isn’t his fucking business, now is it?

“Bodies?” Neville asks, brow furrowed.

“Jason took care of Snape too, dear.” Molly answers immediately, and Jason awkwardly looks away when all of the kids – even Draco – look to him like he hung the fucking moon.

“No more talk of corpses, ‘s too morbid. I’ve got questions about Gotham!” Bill shouts, throwing an arm out and nearly taking out his sister’s head.

“Wait, no, I have another question about corpses. And Gotham.” Doctor Granger bursts in, leaning forward in her seat far enough that her hair gets caught in the remnants of her meal. Her husband sighs fondly at her side and starts picking strands out, which is adorable.

“You said you – the whole thing with Death was unique to you and to Harry, but Gothamites tend not to stay dead generally, how is that any different?”

“Oh that’s not true.” Tim says immediately, and Doctor Granger turns to look at him, blessedly missing the look of alarm that crosses Bill Weasley’s face.

“But – “

“We die just like anybody else. We’re just technically harder to kill.”

“Gotham’s – I cannot overstate how fucking cursed it is. Okay? That manifests in the people who choose to live there. The longer you live, the longer you’re afraid, the longer you’re in pain, and Gotham does need to maintain some sort of stable population what with the serial killers with kill counts in the thousands running around. We take longer to die thanks to Gotham being Gotham, we don’t just come back to life.” Jason clarifies.

It made their failures all the more agonizing, even if the effect was not consistent for everyone. It varied by person, by injury, by who or what inflicted the injury – Jason’s never actually looked into the math of it but he knows the Justice League’s made some cursory attempts to in the past, all shut down immediately by Bruce.

“How do you know about that, anyway? Nygma’s not one to risk talking about Gotham outside the city limits.” Tim asks, stealing Jason’s next question right out of his mouth. The Doctors Granger exchange sad looks.

“I got – sick. Hermione was too young to remember. The surgery to get the tumor out was – very risky. Ed told me to come out to him, and sent us some research papers he and Doctor Crane had put together on the side to convince me. I only made it back home because of Gotham’s…oddness.”

That’s sweet, he thinks. Definitely points towards a less volatile relationship with Nygma than he’d expected, which is…also nice. Jason likes Nygma, and he likes the Grangers. And if the Grangers are okay with him, he can’t imagine it’s the supervillain thing they take issue with.

“But that means you knew about magic before Professor McGonagall ever arrived!” Hermione cries.

“Most non-magicals do at this point, dear. We just didn’t know about wizards, specifically.” She sighs. Hermione doesn’t seem wholly appeased by this, but lets her friends tug her back down into her seat and ply her with more food.

“It’s incredibly disturbing that Crane’s been doing research on magic.” Tim says flatly, and Jason winces, because – yeah. Crane hasn’t, to Jason’s knowledge, used that research – but the possibility alone is unsettling. Fear toxin is already difficult enough to deal with – less so the actual effects, which are horrific enough, but Jason will never be comfortable with the aftermath, with victims tearing their own eyes from their skulls or coming to in the remains of their families. Science has already turned it into a horror; magic will turn it into a nightmare.

“I think we still have those papers, if you would like some copies.” Doctor Granger offers, rubbing one hand over his wife’s spine, and Tim physically brightens.

Jason turns to look at Bill, amused.

“Yeah don’t expect any answers to get less horrifying; that’s on the tame end.”

X

The day after magical Britain goes tits up, Jason rolls out of bed, meanders into the library, ignores the children perking up at his presence, and sets up his scrying gear. Unlike the last time he tried to contact Ducra, this one goes without a hitch – except for her ire, when she picks up.

“You’re late.” She says, disapprovingly. Essence is leaning over her shoulder, smirking.

“I’ve got kids.” Jason says.

Essence’s smirk drops. Ducra gasps, long and loud, and seconds later the shadows of the nearest bookcase rise up and out the two of them step.

The thing of it is, Alfred’s not a fan of small children. Bruce never brought a baby back to the Manor out of pure chance and Alfred holding a razorblade to Gotham’s throat, not for lack of interest himself. Alfred has not and never will demand grandkids – great grandkids – although he is keen on the whole lot of them finding some form of stable romantic relationship.

Ducra, on the other hand –

“That’s so cool.” Harry whispers.

Ducra coos and charges.

X

Having firmly cemented his position as favorite child, take that Essence, Jason leaves the kids clamoring at Ducra for answers to whatever magic bullshit they’d been reading, and struts downstairs with Essence trying to stomp on the backs of his heels the whole way down.

Molly’s the first person they run into.

“Jason, dear, have you seen the children?”

“They are otherwise occupied.” Essence grits out. Molly looks at her, expression caught somewhere between alarm and concern.

“Essence, this is Molly. Molly, this is my cousin, Essence. She and my grandmother just got here, she’s busy harassing the kids.” He’s smug as fuck and not even bothering to hide it.

Understanding floods Molly’s face.

“Well then – I’m going to head to the Alley, see if Madison needs any help with anything. If they get too much, just have Harry send me a patronus!” She sounds amused, but doesn’t wait for a reply before striding off. Jason’s both unnerved by her apparent trust of Ducra and deeply concerned that she just abandoned her horde of children in his care for the day, but she’s gone before he even comes to that realization.

“I am not here to meet your little friends.” Essence says sharply. He turns to her, shrugging.

“I want to introduce you to Kreacher. The family house elf. He’s psycho enough for your tastes. And then we have to figure out what the fuck we’re doing with the rest of the estate. I’ve got some ideas for the All-Caste, but our options vary drastically depending on what route you and Ducra decide to take.”

She narrows her eyes at him. He glares back.

“I run a successful criminal empire, don’t give me that look.”

“You tell your minions to run a successful criminal empire for you.”

“It’s called delegating, which any proper leader knows how to do.” He sniffs back, and starts for the kitchens.

Essence, of course, can’t help but get the last word in.

“That’s cute. We just call it failure.”

Turns out he doesn’t need to take her to Kreacher, because Kreacher comes roaring in like a bat out of hell after the fourth antique vase shatters on the floor.

X

“Jason – “

“Fuck off I’m delegating!”

Tim looks down to the house elf standing next to him, bouncing excitedly on its toes.

“Mister Hoodie was fighting with the shadow lady. She is being with Kreacher and Missy Row helping reforge the compact.”

“I understood exactly half of that, thank you Dobby.” Tim says after a moment; the creature beams and vanishes and Tim kicks Jason’s door in without further ado.

His elder brother is laying on the floor on a rug that is so uncomfortably plush and thick Tim’s afraid it’s going to eat him, a spiral array of paper and books and parchments and ink and quills set up around him.

The Red Hood, certified paper-pusher. The set up is unsurprising; Jason gets bitchy around tax season because of all the paperwork and he has his own dedicated accountants. Let it not be said Jason doesn’t put the work into being a crime lord.

“Is this a summoning circle?”

“I fucking wish.” Jason mutters, but worms his legs underneath himself until he can sit up like a normal person and look Tim in the eye, which is appreciated.

“The original goal was to just bleed House Black dry for the All-Caste, but Ducra’s hoping to just straight up kidnap Maddie’s people and bleed magical Britain dry instead. So mostly this is me figuring out what I’m keeping, and what I’m dumping in Essence’s lap in revenge.”

“She has never struck me as the estate-management type.” Tim’s met her once and hopes to never meet her again. Jason smirks.

“Right, well, I’m just telling you that we’re taking Harry to meet with his case worker, and then Bart will drop him back off here. Lex is moping about not seeing Conner so we’re gonna crash at his place.”

Translation: they’re getting antsy.

Cassie’s the worst about it, surprisingly. Bart would be, except that he likes Jason for some godforsaken reason, and now that Tim has internet he’s able to do work so he doesn’t care, and Conner’s always the most relaxed of all of them when it comes to down time. But – Cassie’s hitting her limit. If they don’t go find some trafficking ring to nuke – metaphorically – then she’ll find a trafficking ring to nuke – literally.

Also, if they leave before Essence gets back and the other kids lose their new-person shine towards Jason’s grandmother, cult exposure will be to a minimum.

“Let me know if you need anything.” Jason says, nodding slowly.

“I intend to.” Tim replies dryly, and then drops the bundle of papers he’s been hiding behind his back onto the floor, right on top of part of Jason’s little set-up.

“Hey – “

“There’s the rest of your custody paperwork. Also the deed to your new safehouse out in the suburbs, the floo connection won’t be set for another couple weeks but after you’ll be able to go straight from here to Gotham with only the small, small price of killer nausea to deal with.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Jason is not touched by the gesture. Good. He shouldn’t be. Tim’s answering smile is all teeth.

“I’m not going to tell the rest of the family you’ve got kids now, but I am going to fuck with you publicly about this.”

“You just gave me a legal identity asshole. I’m not dead anymore.” Jason fires back, instantly.

“As a Black.” Tim says, rolling his eyes, and then freezes, sees the slow, sharp smile spreading across Jason’s face.

That. May not have been the smartest thing to say. Because that. Was a challenge. And Jason, unfortunately, is hardwired to never back down from a challenge.

Jason doesn’t get involved in the Bats’ prank wars. Stephanie takes them too seriously for Jason to bother with. On the rare occasion anyone but Tim challenges Jason to something else, though, he typically goes for it; tricks while grappling, races, goon arrest counts, whatever. He’s competitive. He’s also cunning in a way only Tim seems to understand. The rest of the family will call him a cheater, but Tim is his mother’s son to the bone, and loopholes are in his blood.

He spins on his heel and flees before he can give the asshole any other ideas.

X

Magical Britain’s fucking stupid, and with the Ministry gone basically all of their stupid laws and shit are out on principal, which means Molly gets to indulge in some murder-and-mayhem-for-a-good-cause and Arthur gets to engage in some organizing-and-leading-for-a-good-cause and their kids only now seem to realize how fucking batshit their parents are.

This means that prior legal bullshit is no longer currently enforced.

Bellatrix cannot take her former last names – by virtue of divorce and kinslaying respectively – and Jason has no intention to let her ever rejoin magical society. But she cannot remain nameless either, because most forms of Earth magic necessitate the use of a full name and she would absolutely abuse the piss out of it, if she found out and remained without one.

“This is the standard welcome packet most up-and-comers to Gotham get. My assistant emailed me a copy for you.” Jason says, and dumps a pile of stapled papers into Bellatrix’s lap. She looks startled, a little confused, but doesn’t protest despite the obvious muggle printing she’s holding.

“You want to send me to Gotham?”

“Oh, fuck no. But I will hold you to the same rules I hold my own people to. Break them and I kill you.”

Narcissa, sitting still and tense at her sister’s side, absolutely lights up with joy.

“You can stay here if you want, Dumbledore’s people know about this place and at least one of those fuckers has enough common sense to figure out I killed him. But I am aware that refusing to leave the place you were horribly traumatized in isn’t a thing most people find therapeutic. There’s a list of magical wizarding properties at the back of the packet. If you’d rather go non-magical, or branch out into other forms or types, there are more places available for you.”

She’s quiet. Palms pressed flat to the paper. She looks very small now, strained and faded at the edges – and she’d already looked worn while standing at Tom’s side.

Narcissa had been adamant that Bellatrix had done her best to save Draco from her master’s attentions. She’d been adamant that Bellatrix valued family above all else.

Jason doubts it. Or – not Family Black, at least.

She cares about her sister and her nephew, who stood by her and didn’t flee. Cares about the cousin that stood by her, and didn’t abandon her. Not like Sirius, not like Andromeda Tonks. She cares about those she considers family.

“Why would you offer me this?” She asks. Her voice is raspy enough to be unpleasant to hear; permanent damage from Azkaban, he thinks, given what he’s read on the subject. Jason meets her watery stare, unimpressed.

“I work with people like you all the time. I work with people who have done worse than you all the time. My step mother is a global terrorist with a body count higher than I could ever dream of not including those dead on her orders. My therapist’s ex-boyfriend murdered me as part of his psychosexual obsession with my adoptive father and I still tolerate her acting in my territory – because she keeps to my rules.”

Kreacher’s head rises ominously from behind the couch the sisters are sitting on, an unholy we-will-discuss-this-later gleam in his eyes, and Jason wisely chooses to not see it, thank you, let alone that Narcissa’s sporting the same fucking look.

“To be clear, you will never be allowed around the kids or any property they frequent ever. Ever. I don’t even want you on the same continent as Neville. But – “

But, Narcissa’s worn him down and Bellatrix looks just like Harley does when –

It’s giving him the heebie jeebies and he’d feel guilty if he doesn’t at least try this. Even if Neville will never fucking forgive him.

She’s pregnant, apparently. Jason’s not one to offer leniency merely based on the sex of the perpetrator, but this – this is so far above his paygrade, and once Bellatrix has a last name he’s confident he can contain her – or kill her – so…

“Neville. The little baby Longbottom.” She whispers, voice distant, and before Jason can snap anything about that she shakes her head sharply and folds her hands into fists.

“I – if I hurt Cissa, or Draco, or the – or the baby – “

“I will decapitate you.”

Narcissa frowns at him, but Bellatrix relaxes.

She’d been a kid when the Dark Lord had set his eyes on her. Younger than Jason had been when Bruce –

It doesn’t particularly matter, that she would have joined Tom’s little cult without the grooming – not with her family indoctrinating her too – but it does mean something to him, another tick in the box weighing mercy over execution. He doesn’t think she’s playing up her instability, he’s seen Harley do that too many times to not recognize the play, but…

“Regulus told me the same thing, once.” Bellatrix says suddenly, and presses her wrists to her eyes. Jason scrambles out of his chair before she can try hugging him or crying on him or something, and Narcissa waves him off.

She’s kind enough to let him flee without comment.

X

“If Harry and Hermione and Neville aren’t going back to Hogwarts, neither are we.” Ron declares, hands on his hips, little sister crowded up scowling and nodding at his shoulder.

The bravado’s cute, but the little idiots have pointedly waited until their mom is back home checking on their chickens and whatnot to corner their dad, so.

 Arthur turns to him, mystified.

“What is the plan for the other kids? Is Hermione going with yours?”

“Tentatively, yes.” Jason says slowly, and reluctantly puts his book down.

“The plan is to enroll them in muggle day school. There’s a good one pretty close by. Ducra’s called dibs on their magical education on the weekends and evenings, whenever she feels like. All your kids are welcome to join the rest of them.” Jason hadn’t realized they hadn’t realized that was on the table, and he’s still, unfortunately, not looking at his book when Arthur lights right up.

“Muggle school! Oh, how wonderful! What kind of subjects do they teach, properly I mean? Hermione lent me some of her textbooks last summer but – “

X

He wakes up one morning to find Kreacher hunched over him. This is made slightly better than it would have been pre-undoing the magical fuckery that had enslaved house-elf kind, because Kreacher looks less like an eldritch horror. This is also made significantly worse, because Kreacher is now much healthier and much more powerful. The ill-intent radiating off of him is nearly powerful enough to spark the All-Blades.

“Young Master be telling Kreacher what those filthy muggles be doing to him now.” The house elf says serenely.

“Tim fucking told you didn’t he.”

“Young Master’s brother is not being his concern right now.”

“That fucking narc – “

X

Hood comes back to Gotham. Of course he does, he’s the Red Hood. But he only stays a night or two, and is gone for just as many. He keeps his schedule as erratic and unpredictable as any Bat, most of Gotham doesn’t even realize his schedule has changed –

Tim needles him incessantly, but Jason’s a quick thinker and an even better bullshitter, and while the Bats generally know something is up, Tim and Jason have successfully gaslit the rest of them out of the realm of concern and into the realm of for-our-own-sanity-walk-away-now.

And then Essence bursts into existence in a flailing, writhing mass of shadows in the middle of Bruce’s most recent crusade against Jason.

“Did you know,” She announces, hands folded over her chest and one hip cocked, eyes locked on her cousin, “that your boys are both allergic to tamarind?”

“Oh, boss, you never got them tested?” Jason’s second-in-command, Harper Row, says disapprovingly from the mass of Jason’s gang members gearing up to beat the fuck out of the Bats behind him.

“I sent you that parenting checklist months ago!” Another member cries, offended.

Tim gasps, loudly and delightedly.

“You stupid bitch.”

Jason’s head tilts back, like he’s praying to the skies for mercy, and then he whips Dick’s stolen escrima stick across the road, right into Batman’s gut.

“Get the fuck out of my territory or I will shoot you.” Jason barks, and stalks right towards his cousin, and Tim would sit back and watch but Stephanie’s head is turning in a slow, predatory manner towards him, so –

“Wait for me!”

******************************

Endnote Overflow Starts Here:

Re: Death Magic Lore.

So Jason came back from the dead ~6 months after he was murdered, clawed his way out of his own grave – but wasn’t healed from his injuries. I permanently headcanon that he’s at least peripherally aware of how he came back (how much depends on how much eldritch horror I want to fuck with). I’m emotionally attached to the idea that Death sent him back knowingly – it wasn’t an accident.

HP!Death seems to like making buddies. Like the Three Brothers – it gets the novelty of saying hello again to somebody, rather than just meeting them once and tossing them in the afterlife. This fits with Jason. I also wanted to tie Death to the Potter line specifically – because only the brother with the Cloak greeted Death as an old friend; his other brothers fuckin died like morons. Therefore, only his branch has this close relationship with Death.

So – the Potters get an extra hello. And maybe they don’t consciously use it, but everyone who comes into the family learns of it, knows what to expect. Be kind to Death, be respectful to Death, because Death is an old family friend and the Potters love Death just as much as Death loves them. Instead of having to physically wear the cloak – it’s more metaphysical. The cloak is merely a symbol.

So James died first, and he begged Death to give his hello to his son. Give his second chance, his death-defiance, to Harry, because he knew Lily would fall and then Voldemort would turn his wand on their son. So Lily died second, blood protection set, and she begged Death to give her hello to her son, because there was nothing standing in the way of Voldemort’s wand anymore. So Voldemort cast the killing curse on infant Harry; and it struck true. Harry just didn’t stay dead, because of James’ sacrifice.

It's Lily’s sacrifice that would bring him back after the horcrux removal, if he had gone on to confront Voldemort a la canon. In this, however, Jason has enabled Death to speak to its lil baby Potter WITHOUT having to deal with corpses, so Lily’s hello remains with Harry. He’s still got it in this fic. He’ll also obtain his OWN hello, now that he knows to honor/pray/chit-chat with Death like his family has in the past. Whether or not he uses them is up to you but if he ever does die again Jason is going to ground his ass until the world ends and Harry is very aware of that lmfao.

Re: Muggleborn Population

ALSO I couldn’t fit this in last chapter, thought I would here, and didn’t manage it without it feeling weird, BUT in Chp 1 Jason mentions to the Grangers how few muggleborns there are in Harry’s year, and that’s because the Ministry detects and pins the locations of magical births and accidental magics in the muggle world. While Voldemort controlled the Ministry during the first war, it was not unusual for Death Eaters to slaughter whole hospitals, pediatric wings, families to kill muggleborn babies. Any surviving magical child born to nonmagical parents survived only because their parents moved them, or because their magic remained inactive during Voldemort’s reign of terror. Pure chance. Tim compiles a list of probable victims and sends it to the nonmagical British government, but given the Ministry’s use of obliviates, not all families even know they lost someone and the government doesn’t necessarily have records of all the victims.