"You aren't coming?" Lilith gave the youngest member of the Black family a soft smile but shook her head. "Sorry, Orion, but this year I gave my word that I would be spending the Recess with someone else." Seeing how disappointed he looked, Lilith bent down and kissed his hair. "But I promise. Next year I will be with you and the Blacks for the Yuletide. Then you can show me all around London and the Townhouse, ok?" Orion looked up and nodded, before Lilith ruffled his hair, her gaze shifting to Lucretia and Alphard, giving them both a soft smile. "You two take care and have a great Yuletide." Alphard nodded as Lucretia pulled Lilith into a hug, whispering into Lilith's ear. "You will be joining us for next year, or I will stun you myself. I will stun Riddle and drag him with us if I have to." Lilith blushed but laughed as she hugged Lucretia back. "Might be worth being late to see that." As Lucretia pulled back she gave Lilith a smile, before the three moved off, heading towards the Slytherin Common Room exit. Lilith checked the notice board, noticing that Druella Rosier, Anton Bryce, Biaggio Zabini and young Alessia would also be staying. Lilith hoped that Alessia staying this year didn't mean that something had happened to her family. She would have to check on her fellow refugees, including the young Zabini, making sure that they weren't feeling too left out in the Castle.
News about the war's progress wasn't all that great, though Lilith didn't expect much during this time period. Northern France was still under German occupation, as was much of Northern and Eastern Europe. The African campaigns were winding down, with the Axis forces losing ground again in Tunisia, while Asian campaigns were still in the early stages, most of the conflict being fought in the Asian Continent and out at sea. The news that deeply bothered Lilith the most had been from Poland and even from across the ocean. The papers from MACUSA and the Canadian Ministry of Magic signalled that the fire that broke out in a hostel in Newfoundland had signs of magical and conventional sabotage, which meant that Axis saboteurs were taking advantage of magic to sow chaos where possible. Since the major cities in the North American continent had strong Magical Communities, and the fact that the two North American Magical Governments had warded many of the mundane government buildings against unauthorized magical travel, at least since the end of the War of 1812, Grindelwald's Hexenmeisters weren't able to be utilized to their full potential, so it made sense that they would be used to cause trouble wherever the military personnel were stationed. Even the Soviet Union, with its staunch anti-magic stance due its deep toes with the former Russian nobility, was still using the government buildings of Imperial Russia, which were still warded, for their own safety.
The news out of the Soviet Union was especially distressing. The battles against the German Army were excessively brutal and costly, leaving behind millions of casualties on both sides. The siege of Stalingrad didn't seem to want to end anytime soon. And even if the Red Army started to push the Germans back, it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Any territories that the Soviet Union took control of would likely be swept for Nazis as well as Magicals, many of whom were already Russian exiles from the revolution, people would probably suffer just as much under the Red Army as they had so far under the Germans. The news from Poland was especially distressing, as the Nazi Occupation Authotity was no longer just targeting the Jews and the other Polish "Undersirables", but also anyone who would help them, leaving the door open for false claims and the betrayal of the people over petty disagreements. The Dominiks, though Catholics and Nobles, had either died in the conquest or had fled with little trace left of them, leaving Lilith with no family left on her mother's side. The Holocaust was certainly already in full swing, with word about the concentration camps that Lillian knew about from her knowledge of the future being now firmly established. The worst of the atrocities were still to come and Lilith hated that nothing she could do now would prevent the deaths. Until the Allies pushed into Europe again, there was no way to stop it, even with magic.
It did warm Lilith's heart, though, to know that some of the Jewish population had managed to flee safely, with the Kabbalists lending a hand to protect their kin, creating golems to replace some of the Jewish families before the Nazis would gun them down. That said, the number of Kabbalists was far too low to make much of a difference, but they were at least trying desperately to save as many lives as possible. Unfortunately for them, the Hexenmeisters started lending assistance in the exterminations, meaning that the Kabbalists and their Golems wouldn't hold out for long. Lilith wondered if the near extinction of the Kabbalists in Lillian's time was due to Grindelwald's forces being able to detect their constructs, leading to the reclusive magicals getting slaughtered. Even the magical population of the Roma, whose magical legacy stretched back millennia, had gone silent within much of Europe after the conclusion of the global conflict. How families like the Rosiers believed that Grindelwald was still in the right, despite the fact that the diversity and living legacy of Magical Europe was being eradicated boggled Lilith's mind. Magical Traditions that had been refined over centuries, utilising magic that didn't need wands or Latin incantations, were dying. The practice of Witchcraft, which was even older than Wizardry, had practically been reduced to just Potions, preserved only in its near entirety by the Hags.
Checking the time after dispelling all the troubling thoughts about the war, Lilith made her way out of the Slytherin Common Room. She needed to wish a Happy Yuletide to Cassandra and Myrtle. Her friend Cassandra had warmed up to Lilith again, apologising for keeping her distance from her. Lilith's actions on Samhain had apparently sent her abilities into overdrive, getting random visions and nightmares concerning everyone and everything currently in Hogwarts Castle, seeing futures that were both highly possible and now more unlikely. Some of what Cassandra described had been relatively familiar to what Lillian remembered, both as told to her by Sirius and what she had experienced herself in the castle. Some of her visions were even very reminiscent of the Battle that Lillian had hid from in the Chamber. Apparently, the few times Cassandra had approached Lilith after Samhain, Lillian's magic kept triggering echoes of those same visions. She had been terribly saddened that she had caused so much trouble to her friend, with Cassandra trying to console her, telling her it wasn't her fault. Her friend had smiled though, when Lilith had told her that she was doing everything in her power to prevent that future from ever coming true. Her Seer friend knew that Lilith meant it with every fiber of her being.
-✦-
Tom sat at the edge of one of the windows in the main structure of Hogwarts, overlooking the entrance of the Castle and the throngs of students making their way down to Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts Express, some of them forgoing the Thestral drawn carriages and trudging through the snowy path down to the town. He watched as Lilith made her way to Cassandra, giving the Ravenclaw a hug, before chatting with her and Myrtle. The girls parted after Lilith gave Myrtle a hug and then waved at her friends as they got onto one of the carriages. Tom looked at the scene being repeated with many other students, sighing to himself. This was his first Yuletide knowing about his family, at least on his mother's side. He had thought about paying Lothbruk or even Ragnok to provide him with any details they could acquire about the Gaunts, though after recalling much of his conversations with both, it was clear the Goblins didn't care much about the Magical Families they didn't work with if they didn't have an account at Gringotts or a long and profitable relationship with them. The Gaunts filled neither category. Researching the Gaunts directly would also call too much attention to him, so instead of looking for anything related to the Gaunts, which he found almost no mention of within the Hogwarts Library, regardless of his intentions, he decided to do a more generalized search in the Wizengamot session registries that filled out a massive bookshelf in the very back.
His research revealed that the Gaunts were once part of the Wizengamot, though not in the Wizard's Council that preceded the Assembly. The Family was a devout member of the Dark Faction, but their position seemed to grow more radicalized as time passed. The Registry of all bills, proposals and tallied votes within the Wizengamot showed a steady submission of proposals that would have barred muggleborns from entry into Hogwarts, or incorporation into the society. Interestingly enough, several of the bills did pass the Wizengamot during the 17th century, with the aid of families like the Goyles, Burkes and Rosiers, barring muggleborns from having ownership of any shops within Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade. While no muggleborn was ever allowed to claim a Family Seat in the Wizengamot, the bills to impede their entry into positions within the Ministry failed to pass, though just barely. However, the presence of the Gaunts came to an end sometime in the mid 18th century. The name of Gormlaith Gaunt came up several times in as having been murdered in North America centuries prior, with the remaining Gaunts trying to gain support for taking action against the nacent North American School of Magic. After the American Revolution and the establishment of MACUSA, a representative from that government and another from Ilvermorny brought formal charges against the Gaunts before the Wizengamot.
Though the matter seemed to have been delayed by the outbreak of the both the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars, the situation was eventually resolved, leading to hefty fines against the Gaunts for the attempted murder of Ilvermorny staff, as well as further attacks carried out during the American Revolution by the family, all culminating in their removal from the Wizengamot. That was the last mention of the family in the registry. Tom recalled the words spoken by his mother as he pulled his jacket closed over his neck, pulling up his Hogwarts scarf to block out the cold from the gust of wind that entered through the open window. Based on the Wizengamot records, Gormailth Gaunt had tried to murder a member of the Gaunt family that had fled Britain for North America, abandoning the Blood Supremacist movement that the Gaunts championed back home. This matched his mother's claims that the Gaunts would murder their own unborn bastard children if they were discovered, which made him doubly glad that Merope Gaunt had gone through so much trouble to keep the Gaunts from discovering his existance. Looking back on his own interactions over the last few years, he couldn't deny that he had come close to supporting that same Blood Supremacist movement that would have seen him dead before birth. Now, seeing the extinction of his own family, Tom could admit that the movement's ideals were unsustainable.
Still… looking down, watching as so many students yearned to return home to spend the holidays with their blood family, there was a part of Tom that envied them. Even if they were murders, rapists and beligerent wizards and witches, they had been his family, the source of his magical heritage. Had there really been nothing left of the family that they could have shared with him? Had their hatred of muggles really run so deep that they would have tried to kill him if he had stood at their door, claiming to be Merope's son? Tom didn't know, and a part of him wished that he could have known. The Riddles, his father's family, were still out there, somewhere. Would they treat him the same way as his namesake treated his mother, with disdain and rejection for a crime not of his own making? He didn't know and as much as Tom wished he could ignore these feelings, he found himself returning to them over and over again. Before, when he had no names to the people that gave rise to him, Tom had fantasized about them welcoming him home, a long lost son now restored and loved as a member of the family. Now… now there was a part of him that wished that he had never learned their names. The dream that had sustained him for years now felt bitter and hollow. In this moment, even if he would never tell it to him directly, he could agree with Dumbledore. Sometimes ignorance was bliss.
-✦-
An older gentleman with long grey hair neatly pulled back and held in place by a ponytail looked over his parchment as he read over his prepared speech, making adjustments where he thought they were needed. He had a great deal on his mind. A year ago he had spoken up during the Wizengamot Session, his speech and the support of the Minister for Magic being enough to secure a condemnation and censure Grindelwald from the Wizengamot. In the time since, while volunteers who had been adequately trained had joined the ICW Peacekeepers in the defence of the Resistance movements in German occupied Europe, the bulk of the young men and women signing up had been receiving training from the DMLE in order to be ready for deployment across Europe, if not the world. Their allies in Southeast Asia and Oceania were in dire need of magical reinforcements, especially as Japan's own use of magic made defending the Pacific Islands under Allied control all but impossible. The issue with that would be securing the votes in the Wizengamot for the deployment of these hastily trained Aurors. The Dark Faction had been consolidating its power behind Lord Black, whose support for the censure vote had been a surprise, but his opposition to a strong deployment remained an issue that needed to be addressed.
The door to his office opened and the form of his daughter-in-law carrying a tray with tea and biscuits brought a smile to his face. "Ah. I was thinking about calling Petersby for tea. Thank you, Euphemia. Will you join me?" The brunette, now with shorter brown hair, smiled at him. "That was my intention, Henry." As the two Potters moved to the sofas facing each other, with Euphemia serving Lord Potter his cup of tea, the aging man visibly relaxed. "I really needed this. Will Fleamont be joining us?" Euphemia shook her head as she added sugar cubes to her tea. "No. That son of yours is neck deep in his potions project. He is still trying to find a suitable replacement for some of the materials in the Healing Potions. This war has caused quite a few drops in the supplies and if the Aurors are deployed, the supply shortage will only get worse." Henry took a sip of his tea. "Well, be happy that your husband didn't inherit the Potter family's taste for danger and adventure. I may be proud of Charlus sense of duty, but that is cold comfort when you know he could get himself killed at any moment." Euphemia nodded, though she smiled, hoping to improve her father-in-law's mood. "True, but he is more likely to get himself injured on purpose. Those letters about his beloved Healer are definitely worth preserving for a laugh."
Henry chuckled. "Well, he is a Potter. Always after those who are hard to woo. In fact, your own courtship was probably one of the most tame ones in our family's history. Not that it in any way makes you less suitable as a Potter, as the last few years have proven." Euphemia blushed. "Well, Fleamont does have a way with words and seeing him stumble over his own legs every time he tried to bring me a bouquet of flowers was endearing." Henry smiled at the image. "How he doesn't blow himself up in the Potions Lab has always been a mystery to me. Though inheriting the Potter talent for Potioneering and Alchemy was the best possible outcome for Fleamont. Especially now, since you seem to have inherited the Potter's sense of duty. Going out and rescuing muggles as much as possible, with the support of the Minister for Magic and the Prime Minister no less. Quite the accomplishments, my dear." Euphemia lowered her cup of tea to her lap. "I will admit that the new duties are… satisfying in ways none of us could have ever predicted. Still, I can't take the credit for that. If it wasn't for those two children, we would never have even started, let alone gather enough civilian volunteers to help with the repair work from all the Raids." Henry leaned back. "Have you kept your eye on these two students?" Euphemia nodded. "The Riddle Boy is your typical Slytherin: quiet, reserved and at the top of most of his classes. It's the girl that caused the whole situation in the first place."