The Blackthorn Family
Blackthorn Reunion – Samhain, 1987
There is a running joke in the Wizarding World that goes something like this: What do you call a place with many patches of Blackthorn? The answer is one of great simplicity: Hell.
Contrary to popular belief, the Blackthorn family reunion is not hosted by Satan. He was too busy this year, absolutely swamped with souls to torture. No, the Blackthorns had to settle for somewhere equally as ghastly: a country club in Chiltern Hills.
Starling’s mother, Merryl, was a Blackthorn. Starling’s father, wherever he may be, if he was even alive, was never spoken of. Merryl was once married—never took her husband’s inferior surname, of course, and the man died prior to Starling’s conception (in theory, as they say). The investigation by Ministry officials into his death has been cold for years. Merryl was left a fortune of somewhere around £50 million. Some call her Merryl Blackwidow behind her back, but they wouldn’t dare do such a thing to her face.
Starling’s grandparents, Corbin and Roisin, had five children, of which Merryl was the youngest by far. That gave Starling a plethora of older first cousins to look up to at this reunion. One had recently graduated Hogwarts and would become a metal charmer. For a family so well versed in earth magic, among many other nature-related skills, this was not a surprise. There were also inventors, herbologists, potioneers, unspeakables, historians, curse-breakers, philosophers, and Azkaban felons—the last one not so much a job as it is the result of practicing the Dark Arts or collecting Dark Objects as a hobby, two favorite pastimes of the Blackthorns.
One of Starling’s uncles, for instance, Culver Blackthorn, just finished a stint in the notorious prison. He kept his sleeve rolled up to reveal the thick black stripe around his forearm—just one of many tattoos mandated to inmates—like it was a badge of honor. He still hasn’t sold all of his “contraband” to Borgin and Burke’s, preferring to keep numerous cursed collectibles buried in his backyard, beneath a, you guessed it, Blackthorn tree. Very creative, this family. Since his visit to Culver’s house, Corbin’s oldest son, Bran, has commented numerous times on the smell of rot, leading Merryl to wonder whether Culver has something else buried out there other than cursed objects…perhaps some “evidence” that needs proper disposing of.
Corbin’s great-great-grandmother, Cullodena Blackthorn, sat in the shade, away from the rest of the eclectic party. She wore an all-black, Victorian-style dress with a big, floppy, black sun-hat and sunglasses. A plate of black pudding was placed next to a glass of scarlet liquid. Unsurprisingly, Cullodena was a vampire. This month, she will celebrate her 150th birthday, though she looked to be as old as Corbin.
Other such distant relatives of equal peculiarity collected around the tables of ornately-set hors d'oeuvres. There was Wilda, Corbin’s half-hag half-sister, who was busy cursing her own great grandchild after the baby had puked on her—at least, Wilda didn’t have an appetite after that, or things could have been much worse for the babe (the woman's a hag, what can you do about it?). And then there was Starling’s distant cousin, maybe thrice removed, if anyone bothered to remember: a Mr. Gawen Draighionn Mawr, who was dressed head to toe like his emotional support Lethifold—which was kept leashed at all times, of course. The wannabe Dementor-adjacent animal loved to knock things over with its midnight skin-cape, but, more troubling, the creature had a particular taste for children, of which there were plenty at this reunion party.
Even Wilda and Gawen, certainly weirdoes in their own right, could be considered normal compared to Corbin’s other sister, Lynet, who was trying to encourage everyone to take off their clothes and join in a great nudist, fire-burning worship ceremony to the fairy folk—a practice that she has completely fabricated on her own and has no actual connection to the Blackthorn ways. But, to be fair, Blackthorns have been known to engage in such a thing when pranking muggle folk with their “devil-worshipping”. Corbin was under the impression she just wanted to show everyone how much more attractive she was than her warty half-sister, even with the latter taking a beautification potion daily.
It became a foggy day, which most in attendance preferred. Young children explored the nearby woods of the club, playing games, hunting pixies, searching for their ancestors in any cave they could find. With wild, wind-blown hair and cheeks red from exertion, a 7-year-old Starling ran back to her mother, a wide grin on her face.
“What have you got there, dear? Another pet spider?” Her mother asked, noticing the child hiding something behind her back. Corbin turned from his wife and listened in.
Starling showed her mother the ‘surprise’, a stick of blackthorn, with a few dark blue berries hanging off of the end. “This will be my wand! For Hogwarts!”
A corner of Merryl’s mouth pulled up into a half-smile at Starling’s childish antics.
Corbin smirked, as well, and he and his wife joined the mother and daughter. “Oh, so you want to follow the Old Ways, hm? No Ollivander wand?”
Starling shook her head petulantly and frowned.
Merryl had to try hard not to laugh. “And did you cast any spells?” She asked, playing into her daughter's delusions.
Starling nodded, smiling widely again.
Her mother’s grin faltered. “You…you did?”
“Fire! There’s a fire!”
“That tree…! It went up so quick!”
Everyone turned to look at the commotion. In the distance, sure enough, a birch was alight with flames. Children poured from the forest, screaming. Bran and Culver ran to help put out the fire, with the former already conjuring fast amounts of water. Merryl and Roisin were speechless through the whole ordeal.
Corbin, however, chuckled. “At least it wasn’t Lynet setting things on fire, this time.” He looked to his pyromaniac granddaughter with much affection and pride. “You’ll be a powerful one,” he predicted, ruffling the little girl’s already wildly tangled hair.
“A bleak Spring, it was, after she came into this world,” rasped Cullodena, who had finally left her isolated corner of the gathering and brought along her rusty goblet, not that anyone was fooled by the contents. “In all my years, I’ve never seen such a brutal extension of Winter, and after such a bright Imbolc. One would think Brìghde had perished.”
“Or Cailleach Bhéara was feeling ambitious,” Grandma Roisin quipped, slipping Starling another sweet, despite Merryl’s look of disapproval.
The fire had finally been put out before it could spread to any other tree, curtesy of Bran, the Blackthorn with a talent for conjuring and controlling great volumes of water.
Merryl stroked her daughter’s hair, attempting to work out some of the knots. “Dear, next time you wish to practice magic, try not to burn down the forest. We must respect it, you know that.”
Starling nodded and smiled, but not with that cheerful, toothy grin one usually sees on children; rather, it was a mischievous smirk that could make full-grown man shiver. For, though she was young, Starling noticed quite the interesting loophole in her mother’s words: Starling couldn’t set fire to forests, but everything else was conceivably fair game.