This chapter kinda explains how much clout Lucian has. Read notes at end for more details.
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The Gryffindor common room had never felt so crowded.
Firelight painted the circular walls in restless orange. The usual scatter of armchairs and worn sofas had been dragged into a rough semicircle facing the fireplace, and nearly every seat was taken. First-years sat on the floor in tight clusters. Fifth- and sixth-years leaned against the walls or perched on the arms of chairs. Even a few seventh-years who normally vanished to their own dormitories the moment the feast ended had stayed. The air smelled of woodsmoke, hot chocolate, and the nervous sweat of too many people packed into one room.
Harriet sat between Hermione and Ron on one of the larger sofas, knees drawn up, still tasting the last of the feast on her tongue. Around them the rest of their year had gathered: Neville looking faintly green, Seamus and Dean whispering to each other, Lavender Brown already wide-eyed, and a handful of others whose names she was still learning. Ginny had claimed a spot near the twins, freckles standing out sharply in the firelight. Even Fred and George were quiet, which felt more unnatural than anything else that had happened that evening.
At the centre of it all stood Percy Weasley.
He looked the same as always—neat robes, prefect badge gleaming, posture so straight it bordered on painful—but the usual eye-rolls and muttered complaints that followed him were absent. Every face in the room was turned toward him with the kind of attention usually reserved for professors or, on rare occasions, the Headmaster himself. Harriet found the shift unsettling. Percy had always been the brother people tolerated more than listened to. Tonight the entire house hung on his words as though Merlin had stepped out of the portrait hole.
Percy cleared his throat. The last scraps of conversation died.
"What happened in the Great Hall tonight," he began, voice carefully measured, "is more serious than most of you realise. The name Bloodthorne is not one that is spoken lightly. In fact, it is a name that is almost never spoken at all."
He paused, letting the silence settle.
"If any witch or wizard claims the name without true blood right, or if anyone falsely names another as Bloodthorne, the consequences are… severe. There are old curses attached to the name. Curses that follow bloodlines. The fact that the boy sat there under that name, and that the castle itself reacted, confirms what many of the older families already suspected the moment Dumbledore spoke it. He is one of them."
Neville's hand rose halfway, then higher when Percy looked at him. His voice came out smaller than usual.
"My gran… she used to say the Bloodthornes lived somewhere far away in America. That they didn't care much about what happened in Britain. That they kept to themselves."
Percy nodded once.
"Your grandmother is correct, Longbottom. That isolation is precisely why tonight matters. The Bloodthornes have not involved themselves in the wider wizarding world for a very long time. Their sudden appearance—here, at Hogwarts, in the person of a second-year transfer—is not a small thing."
A Muggle-born second-year near the back raised his voice, sounding both curious and faintly defiant.
"You still haven't actually said who they are. Why does everyone look like someone died when the name came up?"
Percy's expression grew graver.
"The Bloodthornes are the monarchy of magical Britain and magical America. Not figureheads. Not ceremonial. They hold absolute authority over both the magical and Muggle populations of both nations, exercised from the shadows."
Hermione sat forward so quickly the sofa creaked.
"But America doesn't have a monarchy. And the British monarchy is symbolic, Constitutional. You're saying the Bloodthornes are different?"
"They are not symbolic like the Muggle monarchy," Percy said. The words landed like stones. "Their power is real, enforceable, and largely unquestioned by those who know it exists. Before the American Revolution, the ruling family was known simply as the Bloods. They governed the British Empire's magical affairs from behind the Muggle crown and rarely troubled themselves with the Ministry of the time. The Bloodthornes were a branch family given authority over the American colonies. What the Muggle history books call a war of independence was, in truth, a quiet and extremely thorough civil war between the two lines. The Bloodthornes won. The main Blood line was absorbed or erased. The name that remained was Bloodthorne."
Ron stared at his brother as though he had never seen him before.
"How do you even know all this? Dad never said anything."
Percy's mouth tightened.
"Father would have told you when you were older. It's the sort of knowledge that older pureblood families pass down carefully. Most Muggle-borns and many half-bloods never hear it at all."
Hermione's brow furrowed.
"How do they still hold that kind of power? Governments have constitutions. Laws. Checks. Especially America—the war they fought to break away from the monarchy had to mean something. How does one family keep control?"
"Royal families of the magical world," Percy said slowly, "wield forms of magic most witches and wizards never encounter. Ancient magic. The Bloodthornes are said to possess one of the most formidable strains of it. There are stories—old ones—that claim a fully realised Bloodthorne is effectively unstoppable. And like the Bloodthornes, Other royal houses exist. The Orléans line still rules magical France from the shadows. The Romanovs rule in Russia. Some of those families appear in public from time to time. The Bloodthornes have not. Until now."
A low murmur moved through the common room. Several first-years looked openly frightened. Even Fred and George had lost their usual half-smiles.
Percy continued.
"During Grindelwald's war the Bloodthornes did intervene once. Not with a member of the family. They sent a servant. A man named Drago Bloodvist. He appeared in Russia, confronted Grindelwald directly, and is one of the only wizards besides Dumbledore known to have forced Grindelwald to retreat. That single act is still spoken of in certain circles with… caution."
Ron leaned close to Harriet and Hermione, voice barely above a whisper.
"Grindelwald was like You-Know-Who before You-Know-Who. Worse in some ways."
Harriet kept her eyes on Percy.
"Wizard Hitler?" she murmured.
Ron blinked. "Who?"
Hermione sighed under her breath and mouthed later.
Percy's voice cut back across the room.
"The practical reality is this: Lucian Bloodthorne possesses, by blood right alone, the authority to do or say nearly anything he wishes while inside these walls. He is not required to obey the Headmaster. He is not required to obey the Ministry. If he chose to exercise the full weight of his name, there is very little anyone here could do to stop him."
A second-year girl's voice rose, thin and disbelieving.
"You're joking. You have to be joking."
Percy shook his head. "I unfortunately am not."
The common room erupted.
Voices overlapped—questions, denials, sharp bursts of fear. Someone near the back demanded to know whether the boy could simply curse a student and walk away. Another voice insisted Dumbledore would never allow it. A third claimed the whole story sounded like pureblood propaganda. The temperature in the room seemed to climb with every raised voice.
Ron twisted toward Hermione, face flushed.
"I told you I didn't like him. First time I saw him on the train I said he was a snobby—"
"Not now, Ron."
Harriet's own voice cut through the noise before she fully decided to speak.
"If he wanted to kill someone," she said, and the words came out clearer than she expected, "could he actually get away with it?"
The room went quiet again. Every face turned toward her, then toward Percy.
Percy hesitated. For the first time that night he looked genuinely uncomfortable.
"Technically," he said at last, "yes."
The panic that followed was immediate and raw. First-years clutched at older students. Someone near the windows let out a short, frightened sound. Fred and George exchanged a look that had no humour in it at all.
The portrait hole swung open with a sharp crack.
Professor McGonagall stepped through, tartan robes swirling, expression carved from frozen thunder. The noise died as though someone had hexed the air itself.
"That," she said, voice carrying to every corner of the room, "is quite enough."
She had clearly overheard the last exchange. Her eyes moved across the gathered students, lingering for a moment on Harriet before returning to the room at large.
"I have just come from a discussion with the Headmaster. He has given me his personal assurance that Mr Bloodthorne is attending Hogwarts as a student and nothing more. There will be no misuse of authority for malicious ends. He is subject to the same rules and expectations as every other pupil in this castle. I will not have this house dissolving into hysteria on the first night of term."
Harriet felt the eyes on her again. She lifted her chin.
"On the train he didn't act like… any of that. I thought he might have been Muggle-born until I saw the scar. He was polite. He didn't talk about hurting anyone."
McGonagall's face softened by a fraction.
"Thank you, Miss Potter. That will do." She raised her voice again. "All of you—bed. Now. Prefects, see that the first-years reach their dormitories in an orderly fashion. There will be time enough for rumour and speculation tomorrow. Tonight you will sleep."
The dismissal was absolute. Students rose in reluctant clusters, still whispering, still casting glances toward the portrait hole as though Lucian Bloodthorne might step through it at any moment. Percy looked faintly relieved to no longer be the centre of attention. The twins shepherded a group of first-years toward the boys' stairs with uncharacteristic seriousness.
Harriet and Hermione climbed the spiral staircase to the second-year girls' dormitory in silence. The room was small and circular, with four-poster beds and a single window that looked out over the dark grounds. Lavender Brown and Romilda Vane—both of them quieter than usual—followed a minute later and began changing for bed without the usual chatter.
Harriet sat on the edge of her mattress, fingers worrying the edge of the blanket.
"He didn't seem cruel," she said finally. "On the train. Or in the bookshop. Just… quiet. And a bit sarcastic. Being Sorted into Slytherin doesn't automatically make someone a monster."
Hermione pulled her curtains back and sat opposite her, already in her nightdress, bushy hair escaping its pins.
"I know. I just… the way the Hall reacted. The way the ghosts bowed. Percy isn't usually wrong about things like this, even when he's insufferable. I hope you're right, Harriet. I really do."
Harriet lay back and stared at the canopy above her. The events of the day replayed themselves in fragments: the black scar catching the light, the calm American voice, the way the air itself had seemed to thicken when Dumbledore spoke the full name. Somewhere far below, the common room fire would still be burning. Somewhere across the castle a boy with a scar darker than her own was spending his first night in the Slytherin dungeons.
She closed her eyes and tried to believe that McGonagall's reassurance would be enough.
Sleep took a long time coming.