The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black (July 1979)
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. One of, if not the most power pureblood family in England, and one of the most magically powerful families in the world with a very renowned background.
They have been around since the time of Merlin the Great and were blessed by Lady Magic for helping to protect magic. Ever since the first member of the family, Sir Gawain the Black Knight, had helped protect Lord Merlin and King Arthur Pendragon as one of the Knights of the Round Table, the family has been one of Lady Magic’s favourite bloodlines. As a reward for their deeds towards Magic, each member was blessed with a magical gift unique to them. Sir Gawain suddenly found himself able to slay anything with his sword, a gift to represent his prowess as a knight. Every time he came across a creature he could not beat, he would focus and his sword would follow his command, glowing a bright blue to show that magic coursed through it. It was later noticed by Merlin himself that whenever the man used his gift, his eyes would glow the same blue as his sword. This would become a pattern seen among all the members.
As the family grew and time passed, the members were given more elaborate gifts that reflected their personality or magical specialities. The family continued protecting their country and the royal family using their magic during wars, and thus were given a Dukedom as a reward for their deeds to their country by King Henry III in the early thirteenth century. To this day, they are the only family with a hereditary dukedom that aren’t related to the royal family. The Duke Black at the time, Duke Altair Black, was a close companion to the King and protected him from an attack on his life by redirecting an arrow meant for the king using his gift of air manipulation.
The family continued to help the royal family and their country until the late seventeenth century when the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was created by the International Confederation of Wizards ‘to safeguard the wizarding community from Non-Magicals and hide its presence from the world at large’.
It was agreed that the rulers of each country would be informed of Magic and its people and each country would establish their own laws in the matter of ruling. As such, the British Monarch of the time, King William III, decided that he would appoint an ambassador and a council made up of the heads of the magical noble families of the time; to be headed by a Chief Warlock, who would preside over the magical community, but any major laws and changes would need to go through King William, as the monarch of the time would still be the ruler over the Magical community as well as the non-Magical one.
The ambassador that was chosen at the time was the King’s most trusted magical advisor, Duke Castor Black, while the Chief Warlock was to be Ulick Gamp. However, that was changed in 1707 when the Ministry of Magic was established by Duke Black, Lord Gamp and the Monarch of the time, Queen Anne. Lord Gamp was chosen as the Minister of Magic while Lord Black continued to act as the ambassador between the Queen and the magical world. The Wizard’s Council was changed to become The Wizengamot, which had the same power as the council but on a slightly larger scale.
Through the years, and as the wizarding world developed and evolved, the Black Family stayed as one of the oldest and most powerful bloodlines in the world. They continued communication between the Royal Family and the Wizarding World and were well known as an honourable and honest family with a majority of the members being born with dark cores (and the rarity having grey cores). Everything was peaceful between the family members until disaster struck in the form of Gellert Grindelwald and his Global Wizarding War. While most members of the family decided to stay neutral in the war and not intervene until they were called upon by King George V, Duke Sirius Black’s eldest daughter, Selena Black, decided to help Albus Dumbledore and his allies in the war to stop the psychotic wizard from reigning over all magic users and waging a war against the non-Magicals or Muggles as the British called them.
She joined the fight in 1927 and was one of the main warriors to stop Grindelwald from obtaining power, using her gift of foresight to help stop the war in its tracks. While she was helping Dumbledore, she fell in love with Theseus Scamander, one of Dumbledore’s closest allies and Newt Scamander’s older brother, and they got married in 1933. While they never had children of their own, they did make sure to care for their family members.
Her actions in the war helped elevate the Black Family’s status and honour even more as it showed that a dark witch can side with light wizards and help them defeat a dark lord.
But alas, this good reputation would not last as some members’ actions will rip the family apart. Or did they?
24th June 1979
Darkness has always permeated the halls and souls of the House of Black, especially after Walburga Black had taken over as Lady of the Family. Orion Black became a shadow of himself after his forced marriage, only staying as a puppet that Walburga used for her own gain. It had long been suspected that the man had been cursed with a very dark spell to go from being so authoritative and cunning to a shadow that roams Grimmauld Place as a ghost. Everyone distanced themselves from the forced couple; that is until their two sons were born.
Sirius Orion Black and Regulus Arcturus Black were born in 1959 and 1961 respectively. While Sirius was named Heir to the family, Regulus wasn’t spared from the lessons his older brother was given. Their grandfather, Lord Arcturus Black, had tried to slightly control the brothers’ training and influence their upbringing, but alas, Walburga would not have it and hoarded her sons’ time, making sure they were taught what she deemed useful and important and were punished how she saw fit as well.
Their lessons varied from political manoeuvring (at Orion’s rare insistence), wand control, wandless magic and even power manipulation and control – as the two brothers had been born with pretty powerful gifts (which was surprising considering their parents were cousins, or maybe it was because of that, no one really knew). Sirius could control and summon fire at his will while Regulus could manipulate the weather as he wished, even indoors at times. The two didn’t have much control over their abilities as kids, but the lessons literally beat into their skin gave them impeccable mastery by the time they were going to Hogwarts at eleven.
The lessons that were the most painful were the weapon wielding lessons, because Walburga absolutely did not care that they had power literally festering under their skin, they still needed to learn how to use a sword, knives and even a bow and arrow. Regulus always suspected these lessons were a kind of revenge for her, as her parents had insisted she get them as a child too (his mother’s gift was Art manipulation; an ability that was pretty useless in most situations – at least in her parents’ eyes).
His mother was ruthless in her teachings, and whenever she found him or his brother lacking, they would be hit with the ever agonising Cruciatus Curse, which was supposed to be illegal, but try telling that to a woman whose political power and elevated position had gone to her head and thought herself invincible.
Sirius had tried protecting Regulus from most of the punishment and take the blame for his mistakes, but everything had come to a head right before Sirius’s sixteenth birthday, when Walburga had tried to force Sirius to slavery under the new Dark Lord’s rule as a member of his Death Eaters. Sirius had burned the foyer in Grimmauld Place from his anger, screamed at his mother, taken a few more Crutiatus Curses before storming out of the house in a blaze, never to return again.
That night Walburga had raged, ‘disowned Sirius’, destroyed the kitchen before setting her sights on a barely fourteen year old Regulus. She’d decided he’d be the heir – even when she could never choose that and his father never disowned Sirius, keeping him as Heir Black – and took him under her wing, trying to force her opinions and beliefs onto him.
Regulus never agreed to her words and shed them off like an outer layer every time he left her sight, but he kept up the façade of the dutiful son, seeing it as the only way to stay alive and relatively safe, as he didn’t really have anyone to go to like his brother (all his closest friends were either in similar situations or had a good family, but they were in the same circle as his parents and would tattle if given the chance). Sirius ignored his brother at Hogwarts – and Regulus never knew why until years later – so Regulus decided he’d survive on his own, without anyone’s help. If that meant taking the Dark Mark at fifteen and becoming a child soldier while looking for a way out secretly, then so be it. Regulus had always been resourceful and cunning – he wasn’t a Slytherin for nothing after all – and he could certainly find an out.
But that out never came.
Throughout his time in the Dark lord Voldemort’s court, Regulus had been forced to do the worst of things. He’d been forced to manipulate, maim, torture and kill people. He’d even faced his brother on the battlefield on more than one occasion, though his brother never knew it as Regulus was always covered by the Death Eater uniform of black robes and an eerie silver mask.
After every mission of pure destruction and carnage, Regulus would return home, greet his mother in a detached voice and then take a shower with scolding water that he hoped would burn his sins and memories away. He would then take about an hour to meditate and hide the memories behind his thickest Occlumency shields, trying in vain to divide his being into two.
The Destroyer and The Avenger.
At some point in time, right after his seventeenth birthday and after almost three years in the Dark Lord’s service, Regulus looked in the mirror and didn’t knew who he was looking at anymore.
It definitely wasn’t Regulus Black, the Black Family Spare. No, he’d become a killing machine, following orders blindly. He wasn’t a person anymore, but a tool in his mother’s and Voldemort’s hands to use as they pleased.
That was the day Regulus resolved to stop it all.
It was easy to find out about the Hocrux and its hiding place, the Dark Lord was so insane at that point that all his perceived intelligence and cunning were almost non-existent, replaced by a hunger for pain and violence and destruction. It was shameful, and definitely not what Regulus had signed up for, even though he’d been forced and hadn’t actually agreed to anything.
It was a bit ironic that Regulus chose his own eighteenth birthday as the day to go on his mission to retrieve and destroy the bloody Hocrux. He knew it was pretty likely he wouldn’t return from this the same, if he returned at all, so he left letters to the people most important to him, even the nephew he’d barely seen.
And hours later, as Regulus’s body sank into the depths of the Inferi Lake and his eyes closed for seemingly the last time, he found he had many regrets that he’d like to amend.
It was a pretty long list that started with amending his relationship with his brother – and subsequently his nephew – and ended with killing his own mother. He did take slight comfort in the fact Kreacher, his ever loyal House-elf would have the locket and the letters and would know what to do with them.
And that was how Regulus Arcturus Black died without achieving anything meaningful in his life except pain and destruction.
24th June 1987
Or maybe not.