one bad seed kills the garden
ISLA BLACK
Class.
Superiority.
Respect.
Purity.
Isla knew perfectly well that all those things were needed to be the perfect Black woman, and avoid being erased from the tapestry, the one family heirloom everyone was proud of being in. To be a Black was to be part of one of the biggest noble families in the Wizarding World. To be a Black was a pride and joy. And to be erased from the tapestry was a frequent threat that had never been fulfilled before.
Until Isla arrived, of course, and decided that none of the above mattered. Much less, being a proud member of the Black family.
Who else in the Wizarding World had more class and money and blood purity than the Black family? Every member of the family was taught from a very young age to impose respect on others, no matter the cost, and above all maintain the blood purity their ancestors were so proud of. It was everything for them, belonging to this ancient family, defenders of magical purity, rejectors of muggles. That was another thing taught right from the cradle.
“Never hang out with a Muggle,” her older brother Phineas used to tell her, and her sociopath sister Elladora, ever since she could remember.
“Sure, Phineas, whatever you say,” Isla always replied, sarcastic as always, leaving the room to have tea with her mother and aunt. It was an everyday thing, really, and she was getting tired of it.
“Did you know muggles have diseases, Isla? Ones that are fatal to wizards?” Elladora once asked her, hushed voice and horror in her eyes.
Isla could only laugh mockingly. “Auntie’s elf told you that, didn’t he?”
“Mother!” her sister ran out of the room screaming, and if Isla weren’t still laughing, she would have quipped something about it being unladylike.
Isla still remembers that scream, the look on her sister’s face… It was the last time she ever heard her voice. The very next day, Isla was no longer allowed into the Black family home. Or anywhere near them, really.
She left the mansion without thinking about anything other than how tired she was of belonging to that family of pureblood-loving psychotic and stuck-up lunatics. If they were so obsessed with blood, why didn’t they try getting bitten by a vampire and call it quits? If they had only paid attention to her suggestions…
Picking up her skirts and hiding her wand within her hat, Isla carefully sat down in a muggle park. She wasn’t afraid of diseases, of being robbed of her magic, her powers absorbed by the same people her family insisted could never come close. They were all just repeating the same nonsense they had heard generations upon generations, her brothers and cousins and uncles finding more and more stories to share every time they came back from school.
Isla was lucky in deciding Hogwarts wasn’t for her after the very first year, she always said so. The idea, which her parents drilled into her head until she was forced to say yes, was that she was to dedicate herself to them and their house, now that at their old age they were unable to participate as much in the social visits their status necessitated.
Or as lucky as she could be until they started drilling her about a potential marriage with a Xaxley.
It was that very same day, in that muggle park, that Isla met her future husband. Did she fall in love? Of course not! She could never fall in love with a muggle. But she needed an excuse, needed to do something to cut ties with her family once and for all, and this was the perfect opportunity. Muggles disgusted her, as much as they did her entire family, but not for the same reasons. Isla found them extremely ignorant and way below her. However, she had enough presence of mind to notice Rober was different.
Still a jerk, still a man, but different.
Two months later, after a particularly interesting trip to the continent, Isla showed up to the Black family home and announced her wedding to the entire family. Not even ten minutes after the fact, her mother still passed out on the sofa, Isla’s name on the tapestry was nothing more than a scorch mark, and her own life something that no one would come to refer to again.
They didn’t even get to know that a few days later, after making sure her new husband’s money and estate belong to her and her only, she killed him. She was a Black after all.
And she didn’t care.
The Ministry of Magic’s Law Enforcement would end up pursuing an unknown wizard, whose wand Isla stole one night, for “murdering in cold blood a muggle by the name of Hitchens”, and she would live unpunished, happy, and free for the rest of her life. Useful, wasn’t it, having learned from the very best.
She would never get to be Isla Black again, but she didn’t have to. Not anymore.