Lord Harry Potter

Eventually they had all their guests settled and Harry and Sirius served the feast. Andromeda asked about their elves... Sirius took on a pallor. Harry just said they didn't need elves yet. Though he expected to need them when he had a permanent home again.

Remus, Sirius' friend, was very quiet. Harry did his best to draw the man out a bit.

The other guests, including a man with a blue eyeball, were an odd bunch. Very odd. It was a fun evening overall. No one got too drunk, no one puked in one of the fountains... That had been a worry given some of Padfoot's stories of his youth.

Sirius had to promise to behave – no pranks! – but Harry stayed the night. They moved the tent back the next morning.

Then they flew on brooms, outside and not on the ice rink, that afternoon. They dined on leftovers. They'd be eating them come summer break from Hogwarts. At least the goose and ham were very tasty.

The next day Harry returned to his examination of the Book of Family Magic. The early pages were written in runes Harry couldn't yet read nor even recognize the style. The latter pages were written in English. In the middle was a bunch of Latin which a translation spell Harry found turned into nonsense. Oh boy...

Harry continued working his way through the different portraits to ask them about what was contained in the book. Different portraits had used the book for different things.

Harry came to learn what was not included in the book. For one, the rune sets used to defend Godric's Hall weren't included. No one knew why, they just knew it wasn't in there because they'd tried and failed to find it.

It was generally less helpful, and more of a family memento, than Harry had hoped. The tradition to commit the family's secrets to the book had waned at some point. It became a record of births and deaths and perhaps a few new spells. But the oldest part of the book, according to the portraits, was actually material on the family business, pottery.

Later on, Potters hadn't made pots. They'd had all sorts of callings – and the book recorded almost none of that.

Which was sad.

"I'd better track the one for my family down," Sirius said. "I've no idea where to start. We have just as many spits of land, but most still have houses on them. I suppose I'll need to do something with them. But that book... We were traditionalists and fancied ourselves very dark. If every dark thing some member of my family thought of went into that book... Well, I need to get ahold of it."

Harry agreed with the principal but not the urgency. "Is there a rush?"

"I hadn't thought so with so few Blacks left. Andy, me, Tonks Tonks, Cissy, that shite Draco. You, Harry. But that's just me being ignorant. We're the ones who are legitimate. You better believe we have all sorts of roots and bastard branches – none of them appear on the family tapestry."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I've got great-great-uncles who had mistresses. And closer down the line. I don't know how many people actually have Black blood in them. Few legitimate types, but how many others? There were some very unsavory characters in my family. It's possible I have a dozen half-brothers from my own father. Never know..."

"Maybe you should start looking."

Harry smiled as Sirius left the room. It was good he had a project.

Harry found he had another project beyond the house and the things he was doing for his future aventures and for classes. He needed to do something better about this Book of Family Magic. Start documenting things? Make it a useful record of the family? The Potters had almost died out completely. Their family seat was in ruins. Their vault had run empty of any magic to keep it secure. This had to be the family's lowest point in a long, long time.

There was more to a family than a house or a book, but Harry wanted to restore both of them. The family reputation, too. He wanted his family to be strong.

Harry was personally famous...but was there a way to transfer that to the family? Maybe there was.

.....

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