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Green Light in the Dark

Summary:

As the daughter of Sirius Black, Aurora has a big legacy, one she doesn’t want to carry. Half the Wizarding World call her father a Blood Traitor and the rest call him a Death Eater. She is forever judged by her father and by her name. Raised by her grandmother Walburga, then her great grandfather Arcturus and then her great-aunt Lucretia, she’s always been conflicted about her father, as everyone tells his story slightly different. But when she goes to Hogwarts, Aurora is determined to be known as a Black, but not as Sirius Black’s daughter. One way or another, she will prove everyone wrong, straddling the fine line of morality and blood in the Wizarding World.

Beginning and Year One: Chapters 1-19
Year Two: Chapters 20-32
Year Three: Chapters 33-61
Year Four: Chapters 62-102
Year Five: Chapters 103-144

Notes:

(This fic is cross-posted on FF.net.) The rating of this fic may change to teen later, and I will update tags appropriately. For now there are no romances, but this might change. Also, canon-typical violence, attitudes and themes. The first two years will be largely canon-compliant, but larger changes will taken place from third year onwards. (‘Major’ character death refers to Walburga and Arcturus, rather than to major characters in the canon. Later deaths may occur.)

Chapter 1: Granny Walburga

Chapter Text

Even for a two year old, Aurora Black was small, and she was strange. She had stubby fingers and wide eyes and a desperately frightened wobble to her lips. Her hair was already at her chin, a light reddish brown she took from her mother whose face she could no longer remember. She stood alone, clinging for dear life to the edge of a spare cot in an unfamiliar house, crying for her papa.

There was another cot in the room, in which lay a boy far comfortable than she was. He fit this place, the warm magnolia walls with flowers painted over them. He was shorter and younger than her but he was not crying, because his parents were here and he was not scared. He had no reason to be, yet.

Aurora was scared. She didn't know why, as two year olds rarely do, but she knew that she did not feel right and she didn't like this house or this boy and she knew the man and woman who lived here but not well enough and she wanted her papa. She needed him. Her hands grasped the edge of her cot and the boy opposite her shook his head urgently, and promptly started crying.

Her attempt at escape foiled, Aurora fell back down to sit grumpily on the bed as the boy's mother rushed in to hold him tightly. "Shush, Neville," she told him. "It's alright, sweetheart. Did you get a fright?" Neville cried. "There's nothing to hurt you here, Nev. Just Aurora." Neville looked over his shoulder at Aurora, who drew back and pouted. He seemed to be getting an awful lot of attention. Aurora just wanted someone to hold her like that.

"Papa," she cried out, and Neville's mummy turned around towards her. "Want Papa!"

Neville's mummy smiled uncertainly. "Don't worry, Aurora. Your papa will be here soon, he just has to find Harry."

"Papa," Aurora said again, pouting. She knew Harry, but could not think why her papa would be with him and not her. She could not remember the last time she was not with her father. For the last few months, they had been almost the only company that each other had.

Neville's mother looked worriedly at Aurora and then at the window, where the sun was already beginning to set on the first day of November, casting a fiery reddish gold over the street outside. "Your papa'll be here soon," she said, less certain this time. "I promise, sweetie."

He did not come for Aurora that day nor the next. Instead, at dinnertime when Neville was being fed and Aurora was chasing sweet corn with a plastic fork, there was a sharp knock at the door. Aurora looked up excitedly, brightening for the first time that day. "Papa?"

Neville's parents looked anxiously between each other, and his father went to answer the door. The voice there didn't sound like Aurora's papa; it was a lady's voice, quiet but stern and authoritative, the sort of person who would boss Aurora around and tell her off if she got fingerprints on her photo frame. But she was not used to that sort of voice; she got told off by her grandpa fairly often — or she had, it had been a while since she had seen him — but he was always nice. This lady's voice was cold, and Aurora did not like cold. She frowned when she heard the door close, and the clicking sound of footsteps over the floor as the visitor entered the house.

She was very tall, Aurora thought when she saw her. She had high cheekbones and dark curls and an cold glint to her eyes. There was something unnerving about her, something scary, yet at the same time, familiar. Aurora looked to Neville's mummy in confusion.

"Aurora," Neville's father called her over, and she got down obediently from the table, toddling over. Neville stared at her - he wasn't very good at walking yet, but Aurora could run when she wanted to. "Come over here. This is your granny, Walburga."

Aurora looked at Walburga. She wasn't her granny. Aurora's granny was short and smiley and had ginger hair and snuck her sweeties and gave good cuddles and let her run around in the garden, and was rarely cross even when she brought mud inside. Granny Walburga looked down her nose at Aurora with stern grey eyes and didn't look like she wanted to see her at all. Aurora didn't think she would like mud.

"This isn't granny."

Neville's father looked nervous. "I am your grandmother," said Granny Walburga. She spat the word grandmother out, as though it held a bad taste. "Your father has gotten himself imprisoned." Aurora didn't know what that meant. "As such, the responsibility of... caring for you... has been given to me, as your closest living relative." Aurora stared at her.

"Where's Papa?"

Granny Walburga pursed her lips. "He is not important."

Aurora didn't agree with that. "Where's Papa?" she demanded, more louder this time. "I want Papa!"

Granny Walburga stood up abruptly. Neville started crying again. "I will be taking her now, Longbottom. The Ministry will be dealing with this."

Neville's daddy looked at a loss for what to do. "Well... We'd still be more than happy to—"

Granny Walburga shot him a very sharp look that Aurora didn't like at all. Neville's dad stopped talking. "At least you kept her alive," she said. She looked at Aurora. "Come with me, girl."

"Aurora," she said indignantly. "I'm Au-ro-ra." She said her name slowly so that Granny Walburga understood, but she didn't look very pleased about it.

She scooped Aurora into her arms tightly, nodded stiffly to the Longbottoms, and then stalked out without another word or a thank you. It was cold outside and Aurora sniffled, looking over her shoulder as the door closed. She didn't have a coat. She didn't have any of her things, and all of a sudden longed for her teddies; the brown bear with the pink heart on its paw, the golden lion cub, the fluffy black puppy.

All she could see of Neville and his family were their outlines in the living room.

"Where we going?" she asked Granny Walburga, who did not answer. She kept walking down the dark street in silence, and then when they came to a quiet corner with no funny cars or motorbikes, she brought out a stick which looked a bit like Papa's wand but wasn't, and then everything disappeared and reappeared in and instant.

Aurora started crying. She didn't like that feeling at all — it made her feel sick — and now when she looked around she was in a room she had never been before. It was dark and imposing, with a high ceiling and lush wallpaper. There weren't any windows, which she didn't like, either. Aurora liked seeing the sun and the sky and she liked having space to run. She stared up at Granny Walburga as she set her down onto a chair; it was hard and not squishy and her legs were very high off the floor. She might not be able to jump off it, and Aurora didn't like being restricted by that.

This was not somewhere she could ever imagine her papa inhabiting, or her mummy, or anyone she knew. It was wrong and all of a sudden she felt terribly far out of her place. Her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with fresh tears and she whispered, "Where's my papa?"

"Stop crying," Granny Walburga hissed at her, face twisted venomously. "I will not have a crying child in my house!"

"I want Papa!" Aurora cried out, looking around, but there was no sign of him. She turned back indignantly to Granny Walburga. "Papa!"

"Your Papa isn't here," Granny Walburga spat, and her voice was not nice. Aurora cried harder. "Stop crying, girl!"

"But — but—" Her lips wobbled. "Where's Papa?"

Granny Walburga did not tell her. "You are staying with me for the foreseeable future," she said, words pinched. "You will not cry. You will not whine. You will do as you're told. You will not ask for your papa."

"But—"

"You will not!" Aurora's lip trembled again, but she nodded, frightened. Granny Walburga glared down at her. "Are you hungry?" She shook her head. "Good. Kreacher!"

There was a very loud crack and then a strange, wrinkly thing appeared in front of Aurora. She shrieked and scurried backwards, forgetting the height of her chair, and promptly knocked it over. The weird thing caught her just in time, its large eyes wide in alarm. "Mistress?" it said in a croaky voice, turning to Granny Walburga. "Is this the child?"

Granny Walburga nodded. The thing seemed to gasp, and then, setting Aurora down carefully, bent over so that its long nose scraped on the floor. It was weird. She looked at Granny Walburga, who pursed her lips. "Stand up, Kreacher. She will not be staying for long — half blood scum of the blood traitor." She shook her head, and though Aurora didn't know what that meant, she didn't like the way Granny Walburga said it. She didn't like anything about this situation, really. "See to it that she has a bed made up. Amuse her until she is tired. And try to stop her crying. I can stand the noise."

Then Granny Walburga turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Aurora almost cried again but she didn't want to anymore, now she'd been told not to. Maybe if she was good, Granny Walburga would take her to her papa. She was family. That was what that meant.

So she looked at the weird thing who had just stood up, and tried to be polite. "Who are you?" she asked in her nicest voice, like Papa had taught her to.

"Kreacher, young mistress," the thing said. "At your service and the service of the Black family."

She folded her arms, frowning. "You're a Kreacher?" Kreacher nodded. "What do you do?"

"I serve Mistress," he croaked.

He didn't say anything else. Aurora sat down on the floor, confused, then said, making sure Granny Walburga wasn't around, "Do you know where papa is?"

Kreacher shook his head with a strange sort of smile. "The traitorous son is gone. Locked up in Azkaban... as he should... his he hurt my mistress... how he betrayed her... now his little child is here... Oh but my mistress doesn't want her... No, she doesn't..."

"Az-ka-ban?" Aurora said, sounding out the word as Kreacher had pronounced it. She hadn't heard of an Azkaban before. "Where?"

Kreacher shook his head. "Kreacher does not know. Kreacher does not go to Azkaban. Kreacher serves his family and is loyal and does not betray them."

Aurora stared at him. "Papa come back?"

Kreacher looked at her with a mean smile. "Kreacher hopes not. Kreacher hopes the traitor Sirius rots in Azkaban."

Aurora flinched. She didn't want her papa to — to rot. She wanted to cry again and this time she did. Kreacher, to her surprise, was quick to try and comfort her, although she didn't really understand what he was saying. She didn't stop crying for ages, until Kreacher gave her a sort of pencil with a feather on the end and told her she could do some drawing on parchment, and she sniffled a bit, before she got to trying to draw him, a big, shakily lined blob with two smaller eye blobs and big triangular ears.

She didn't see Granny Walburga again that night. Kreacher told her to sleep in a room on the first floor, that was far too big for her one person, and it was dark and creepy and the floorboards creaked and one of the windows was open, so the curtains fluttered menacingly at her, like dark green ghosts. Aurora didn't like to sleep on her own. Usually, Papa would sleep in the room with her in case she had a nightmare, and he would rock her back to sleep.

But Papa wasn't here. There was only Aurora and the wind and Kreacher, creeping in the hall outside. She curled up under a thick blanket, wishing for one of her stuffed toys, and she kept crying until it wore her out and she went to sleep, dreaming of bright lights and high cackles, and her papa screaming when she couldn't reach him.