Yule break did not arrive in a rush. It arrived the way the castle did everything now, on time, in order, without the old chaos that used to cling to every corridor like dust.
Harry finished the last of his packing in the dormitory while the others argued about who had stolen whose socks. He shoved his books into the trunk, pressed his palm to the latch, and watched the brass shrink until it was a bit smaller than his fist.
In the Great Hall, banners had been changed for the season. No gaudy charmwork, no floating glitter, no enchanted snow that would melt into someone's soup. The decorations were practical. A long cleared space had been marked on the flagstones, and at the far end of the hall a set of clean iron hooks waited like a promise.
Neville had explained it the night before, in his calm way, like he was talking about Herbology.
"The centaurs bring the deadfall. No live trees."
Harry had stared at him. "They just… give it?"
Neville had shrugged. "They have their own reasons. They like the arrangement. Our relations with other Magicals are not what they were before; they respect the ritual as much as we do."
That was the new Hogwarts. Respect, not fear, not indulgence, not the old dance of students pushing and teachers pretending not to notice. Even the ghosts were quieter.
Harry looked down at the small trunk in his hand. He had been sure he would stay for the Yule pyre. It would be his first time seeing the ritual done in the castle, not the Christmas he hated, thanks to Aunt Petunia. He heard about their passing from an official letter from the Ministry. He didn't feel remorse or grief. Being merciful to people who hated you was the epitome of naivety. It was betreyal to one's self. He did not hate the Muggles. He simply liked to stay apart. Returning to the conundrum at hand, he pictured Longbottom Manor.
Alice's sharp voice, when she was angry and her love even at the smmit of anger, thanks to the 'boys.' Frank's steady one, Neville's quiet laugh when he thought no one was watching. He pictured their dining table. He pictured the way Alice never forgot to set a fourth place for him.
"You are within family." She would say while sending Neville and himself to bed.
He made his choice before he reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.
By the time he reached the moving staircase, the castle was already in holiday mode. Prefects watched without the lazy swagger he remembered from before, badges bright and careful.
Hermione Granger had been a constant, once. A familiar storm, always ready to argue. Now she stood at a landing as if she had been placed there for a portrait.
Hermione Moira Carrow. He corrected himself.
Harry slowed. He did not pretend he had not seen her.
She faced him with her hands folded in front of her. Her hair had been tamed into something orderly. Her robes sat perfectly on her shoulders, hem measured, shoes polished. When she looked up, her eyes caught him like a blade catches light.
Grey.
Not the brown he remembered. Not a trick of the torchlight either. Grey, clear and cold.
"Mater Magica Aeterna, Heir Potter."
The words landed with the calm of a practised greeting. No grin, no warmth forced for the sake of manners.
Harry adjusted the grip on his trunk. "Mater Magica Aeterna, Miss Carrow."
Hermione's mouth twitched. It might have been amusement, or it might have been the last muscle allowed to move.
"You are going to Longbottom Manor." It was not a question.
He nodded. Her gaze dipped to his trunk and back up.
That was all. No lecture about duty. No comment about ritual. No soft sigh for the holidays. Hermione had changed, and it was not only her eye colour or spellwork.
He walked beside her down the stairs, steps syncing without discussion. It was strange how easy it felt. They were not friends, not enemies either. They were something colder, shaped by the castle's new rules.
"Everyone was shocked," Harry said, because silence with Hermione used to mean tension, and he did not like old habits anymore. "About you. About the Carrows."
Hermione did not look away from the next landing. "Everyone is shocked about everything. They will run out of shock eventually."
He snorted before he could stop it. "That sounded like Professor Black."
Her eyes flicked to him. A brief flash of something real crossed her face, then the grey settled back into place.
He wanted to ask if she was happy. The question died in his throat because he already knew the answer she would give.
"I heard," Harry went on, "you passed most of the third year syllabus."
Hermione's shoulders did not lift, but there was pride under her control, the way heat sits under a covered pot. "Most of it."
"And the other Carrows," Harry said, keeping his voice low as students flowed around them, "they found cousins like most of the other houses of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Though I believe it is not twenty-eight anymore, with so many half-bloods."
Hermione's lips pressed together. "Discussing other houses' blood status is not what an heir should be doing, Potter. As for my brothers and sisters, again, I do not see where it matters to you."
Harry cleared his throat. He was not expecting to be rebuked.
"I wonder if there are 'lost cousins' of House Potter as well."
He was sincere in his question. So many houses found relatives. He was quite sure they were not lost cousins. Adopted Muggleborns was his first guess, though he discarded it after seeing how these first years were talking, walking and moving. They were pure-bloods through and through.
Hermione ignored him. It was not her or her house's concern.
Harry pictured them, the ones he had seen in the halls. Not older students, not really, but built like grown men and women. Too tall. Too smooth. Too perfect in the same way a polished sword was perfect. He had heard whispers. He had seen the way teachers watched them with narrowed eyes.
"They are not normal," Harry said.
Hermione gave him a level look. "They are carrying the legacy of centuries."
That was the truth of it, and it sat heavily with him. Was he carrying the legacy of the Potters? Being a Pure-blood has its advantages. But Blood Discrimination was not something the new management allowed or supported. Especially after the Muggleborns were adopted into magical households. This year, there was not even one new Muggleborn.
Harry heard some of the Slytherins talking that the term was dead. There will be no Muggleborn anymore.
They reached the ground floor. Hermione stopped at a corridor that led toward the carriages and the Floo point for students leaving the grounds.
"You are still thinking about the Department," Hermione said.
Harry blinked. "How did you…"
Her gaze held his. "You wear your worries loudly. You always have."
He rubbed a thumb along his trunk's latch. "It is ridiculous now."
Hermione's expression did not soften, but her voice lowered. "Nothing is ridiculous if you work for it."
He remembered Professor Rival's face when he had asked.
Not amused. Not kind. Just a grin like he had been handed a child's wooden sword.
Harry had found him in the training hall, where older students were practising strikes and counters. Rival had been watching with his arms crossed, posture loose, eyes sharp.
Harry had waited until the drill ended, then stepped forward.
"Professor," he had said. "I want to join the Aurors when I am of age. Would you recommend any book that could help me?"
Rival had laughed once, a short bark. He had looked Harry up and down like he was assessing a broom with a cracked handle.
Harry had not flinched. "I am serious."
Rival had laughed again, louder, then leaned closer so the other students would not hear the next part.
"Potter, even I cannot guarantee my place. Did you see the new Aurors?. The new lot is built differently. They are faster, stronger and bigger. Some of them do not even need a wand." Rival had tapped Harry's chest with two fingers, not hard, just insulting in its certainty. "If you want to stand in the same line, you work until you forget what sleep is. Or you choose something else."
Harry had walked away with his face hot and his stomach cold.
Frank had not comforted him when he asked about it at the Manor. He had listened and nodded once.
"Connections were enough for old Britain," Frank had said. "We do not live in old Britain anymore. If you want the badge, you earn it."
Back at Hogwarts, Hermione's gaze stayed on Harry as if she had been in that room.
"I will think," Harry said.
"You will train," Hermione corrected. "Thinking is for when you already have strength."
Then she stepped away without another word, robes swaying once, and disappeared into the corridor.
Harry exhaled, the kind of breath you did not notice you were holding.
He left Hogwarts through the Floo with Neville. Not sneaking out as Sirius suggested. The new order did not tolerate clever boys playing games.
Longbottom Manor greeted him with the smell of bread and the sound of Alice shouting orders at Frank about the gifts for the boys.
Neville met his gaze with a grin that lasted exactly two seconds before Alice's voice cracked down the hall.
"You two, do not just stand there. Come and hug me. And if your posture looks like that in public, I will personally tie a board to your back."
They laughed and went to her. Harry could feel the motherly love and let himself relax.
-
"We are going shopping," Alice said, already moving. "There are lovely places called malls, Narcissa discovered them."
True to her words, in less than an hour, the family was ready. No robes, pure Muggle clothes and no wand or magic.
They went through the Floo to a small house near Carlisle. The first pyre they saw was in Workington, in Vulcan Park. A wide circle of stacked logs waited in a cleared patch of grass. Muggles moved around it with clipboards and gloves, setting barriers, arguing over placement like it was a festival.
Neville stopped to look. "They are really doing it."
Harry watched a group of teenagers drag more deadfall to the pile. "They are doing it openly."
Castle Park in Whitehaven had another. Bigger, closer to the centre. A local policeman stood nearby and watched the preparations with the bored posture of someone assigned to a job he did not understand.
Upperby Park was the one that made Neville go quiet.
They stopped near Hammond's Pond. The water was dark under winter light, still enough to reflect the bare branches and the figures moving around the prepared pyre. The pile was huge. It had been built with care, not slapped together. Someone had marked the ground with chalk lines that looked like a rough circle.
Harry's skin prickled.
He knew enough now to recognise a runic array. For Muggles, it will look like a Celtic pattern to Magicals; however, it was the array for the Yule Pyre.
He turned his head toward Alice. "Why are they doing it like us?"
Alice did not answer. Frank did.
His mouth curved in a way that meant he was choosing his words.
"You can ask your distant cousin," Frank said. "Corvus Black."
Neville frowned. "Heir Black?"
Frank's hand stayed on the car door, steady. "You think traditions come back by accident, or councils approve large fires all over the country without someone pushing? Muggles started to go through the Druidic rituals; Yule is not an exception."
Harry watched the teenagers throw another log onto the pile. He watched a man with a radio speak into it, then nod like he had been told a schedule.
"What is he doing?" Harry asked.
Frank's eyes stayed on the pyre. "Making people remember what they were before they were taught to forget."
Alice cut in, voice sharp. "Enough talk. We are not standing in a park like tourists. There are more shops to visit."
She took their hands and moved to a darker corner of the park. After making sure they were hidden from prying eyes, Frank's grip on Harry's shoulder anchored him, and then the world folded.
They visited so many shops that Harry could not remember what they bought.
Longbottom Manor snapped back into place with its familiar solidity.
Harry stood in the entry hall, heart steadying, and felt the question settle deeper instead of fading.
Corvus Black.
Harry had grown up in a cupboard and a name people whispered like a curse. He had survived by being small and quiet. Now he lived in a world where names moved nations, where rituals shifted across the Muggle side of Britain like a tide.
He looked down at his hand, empty now except for the faint sting of apparition.
Frank had said it like a warning and like an answer.
Ask your cousin.
Harry stared at the fireplace for a long moment, then turned toward the stairs.
He did not know if he was ready for that conversation.
He knew he would have it anyway.