The Brightest Sun

Chapter 6

They had settled into a comfortable routine. Already, the Martells had been here for a month, the time flying as they attempted to adjust to their new surroundings.

Teddy had been thrilled, and Harry felt a twinge of guilt when he thought of the isolation his son was mostly kept in. Rhaenys and Aegon were good for him, the two accompanying him as he finally had children to play with consistently.

There had been a moment when he thought their growing closeness would harm them, that Teddy would soon have to say goodbye to his new friends as they returned to their world, but the runes were proving difficult to organize – much less learn – and so he had bit his tongue and allowed it to play out.

"You've been staring at that letter for the past half hour Herakles," Aunt Dorea's voice drawled.

Sighing, he glanced briefly at her portrait as he asked, "Must you always call me by the full name?"

Looking at Dorea was slightly painful for both him and her, though it had been two years since Andromeda's death, and nearly ten since Sirius. The elder Black shared many of the same features as her nieces and nephews, and with the adoption Harry's hair had darkened and turned into a wild mass of curls, his face sharper and resembling Dorea's lost son more and more.

"Yes," she sniffed. "It's much better than Harry. Had they named you Henry than perhaps I might have relented, but Herakles is a good name."

He rolled his eyes at her familiar argument, able to mimic her word for word, and he saw Dorea's grey eyes narrow. "At least Andromeda gave you a good name."

A sad smile pulled at his lips as he recalled the middle Black sister. They had argued over names before the adoption process, but Harry had been unwilling to drop his father's name, and so Herakles James Potter-Black had been their chosen compromise. Much better than her original wish for Denebola.

He had introduced himself as Harry Potter to Elia Martell and was the same person in spite of the changes, but it was odd hearing the name Herakles from someone other than Andromeda.

"The letter?" Aunt Dorea prompted, and Harry glowered at the parchment in his hands, corners crumpled from where he had gripped it.

To Harry James, Lord Potter it read. An attempt at appealing to a Harry they thought they knew.

"An invitation," he told her, green eyes dark with disdain. "For a party in honour of some ministry worker. They would like Harry Potter to be there."

"But not the Lord Black," she finished. Dorea's eyes darkened in angry disdain even as they had faced the same song and dance since Andromeda had cemented Sirius's decision to leave everything to Harry.

Harry Potter was the orphaned child of war heroes, was a hero himself; the Gryffindor golden boy, the boy-who-lived to become a poster for the light side and denounce all things dark. He was a symbol to the people who had fought in the war on either side. A shining example they had thought, of what it meant to go against the system they lived through.

As much as he wished to tear it all down at times, Harry wasn't a complete idiot. The hat had wanted him in Slytherin for a reason, and Andromeda had honed the instincts he had allowed to flounder.

The letter had come with a personal note attached. Even if he had not spoken to her for some time, Harry could never quite forget Hermione's scrawl.

He had barely spared it a glance, already knowing what it would say.

Herakles Potter-Black was not their friend; their Harry would never have taken on such titles and embraced pureblood society and their traditions.

Never mind that he could barely stand some of the people who carried similar titles.

Harry had yearned to know of his family, had carved out a family for himself and wanted to honour the traditions of his ancestors so long as they did not go against what morals he had managed to scrounge together in his upbringing.

"They can all go bugger themselves for all I care," he told her, scowling at the parchment.

It was a testament to how little she thought of the letters that Dorea for once did not scold him over his language.

Sighing, he threw the parchment to the side, standing to leave the study. The others were most likely in the family room upstairs, and waving to Dorea he made his way through the winding halls to find them.

They were sat around Teddy, an apprehensive look on Elia's face as she saw what the boy held in his hands.

Rhaenys was wearing a pair of trousers, something Elia had told him women in Westeros were rarely found wearing, but Harry had ordered a number of them for her wardrobe alongside the dresses her mother had made.

Coming closer, Harry saw the shaft of his toy broom, and a fond chuckle left him as his mood instantly lifted.

"Teddy, maybe we should leave the flying for another time yeah?"

"But Papa," he whined, hair curling into a bright green mess, "they wanna go flying too!"

"Want to," he corrected, ignoring the unimpressed look the five-year-old sent him.

"Is it safe?" Elia asked lowly, a sceptical tone note in her voice.

"It's been child-proofed," he reassured her. "I'm surprised you believe a broom can fly."

"We walked into a fire to travel, a broom is relatively normal compared to that," she replied flatly, and Harry laughed softly at the reminder.

"Perhaps another time," he told the children, swooping in to grab the broom. "And definitely not inside this room."

The three let out disappointed groans, little Aegon toddling forward with wide purple eyes that Harry determinedly ignored lest he give in. Five years with Teddy and he had not become fully immune to the power of pleading eyes from a child.

"Want to fly like a dragon, like Balerion," Rhaenys pouted.

"Dagin!" Aegon cheered, and Harry ruffled the boy's silver hair as he placed the broom in the corner.

"What's their obsession with dragons? Did they have them in Westeros?" he asked Elia, watching as she scooped Aegon into her arms and sat on the loveseat, orange dress splayed around her.

"Their family once flew dragons," she told him. "Every Targaryen for over a hundred years has bonded with a dragon hatchling, and none have seen a dragon for a hundred years after."

Dragonriders, he thought amusedly. Maybe a trip for another time, when the children were slightly older and could handle the sight.

"I once rode a dragon," he told them, Rhaenys and Teddy's eyes widening in awe. He had not told his son that story, or the one of his racing the Horntail.

Elia's brow rose, and Harry sent a mock hurt look. "Do I not look like a dragonrider princess?"

She smiled, an odd look in her eyes as she murmured something he could not hear over the barrage of questions the children had suddenly asked.

Laughing, he grabbed Teddy in one arm, Rhaenys scrambling onto the couch in anticipation as he sat next to her, plying the children with an edited version of his escapades with dragons.