Family Legacies
Family Legacies
The rain had passed, leaving only the wind and the clunk and swoosh of Hagrid’s oars through the water. “Almost there,” he called, his voice only slightly breathless. “Reckon you lot’re lookin’ forward to the feast.”
“Feast?” said a boy’s hopeful voice at the back of the boat. “When do we eat?”
Hagrid laughed “Right after you get Sorted into your Houses. That’s how you’ll know what table you’re to go sit at, see?”
“Houses?” asked a girl behind me. “My letter didn’t say anything about…”
“Well it wouldn’t, would it?” said the boy beside me, a skinny kid whose dark hair hung in wet, greasy strings. “Are you Muggle-born or what? I can’t think of any other reason someone would ask such a stupid question.”
“None o’that now! We’re supposed to try an’ get along, see?” Hagrid’s voice became a gentle rumble though he spoke loud enough for all to hear. “You wanna know ‘bout the Houses. There’s four of ‘em, see? Old as Hogwarts, and named for the two Witches and two Wizards who started the place, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and-”
“Yeah, and Slytherin.” I sighed. My nails dug sore spots in the backs of my hands.
“Yeah,” said the boy beside me. I realized I’d spoken out loud. “Lucius Malfoy told me you’re Sirius Black. You’ll be there with us. Kind of a relief, isn’t it?”
“A relief?” I hadn’t thought of it that way.
“Being in the one place that won’t treat us like little kids who can’t handle Dark Arts? And keeps out Mud-blood trash? It’s the only worthwhile House if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” I snapped, turning to stare at the prow of the boat.
“You’re an idiot!” I told myself. “If you let old Stringy-Boy here get to you!”
My stomach knotted in warning. “No! You’re only an idiot if you don’t listen!”
Great. Hogwarts really was like my family said. This kid had just confirmed it. I’d study Dark Arts, learn to fly people from rooms, fling curses to bend them to my will, snatch their stuff, freeze them so they could not resist. I could even hex other Purebloods if they disagreed with me and my Magic was stronger. That was the big thing I must learn, to control my Magic and do what my parents did. But why was that so important, exactly? It wasn’t like doing those things made them happy. Not like Cousin Andromeda seemed happy. Was there something she’d learned that was- bigger? Something from a world beyond mine?
In the last week, I’d almost convinced myself my parents were wrong about spending all my time learning to exercise the powers of the dark arts and fitting myself into Wizarding society. I’d have friends who’d use their Magic for cooler stuff than proving how great they were all the time. Like exploring. I was thinking of jokes and laughter, a lake full of sea-monsters and woods with mysterious creatures in it. On the train I’d been hatching plans for examining the grounds.
Stringy’s words recalled my real future. Head of the House of Black. My life’s course was set before I could lift my play broomstick an inch off the ground. I’d grow up to have a position of power in the Wizarding world, make a Pureblood marriage and become one more Wizard whose story was woven in a few gold threads on a tapestry in our parlour. A hundred years from now, some other kid would look at it and feel trapped.
Against the mist, I could picture the tree in our walled garden and the branch that had beckoned me. I heard my Father say he’d set spells to shield us from the view of passing Muggles. I saw the look of puzzlement and disgust in Regs’s eyes when I said I wanted to explore out there and then his worry that I’d get in trouble for it.
Why did things that made my family feel strong make me feel closed in? Why did the idea of a world of different people and possibilities beckon me when it disgusted them?
Like Nymphadora. Behind the parlour door I heard my Mother use Stringy’s word “Mud-blood” as she complained about Cousin Andromeda’s little girl, Nymphadora. Could she have talked that way if she knew her like I did? She was a brave, funny little kid. Whatever my family said about Mud-bloods not being real Wizards, none of them were able to change the shape of their faces or the colour of their hair the way she could.
But they chose not to know her. They got angry if she got mentioned. Even Regs. How his eyes had sparkled when he said our Mother wanted to blast Cousin Andromeda’s name off the family tapestry for marrying someone who, though he was a Wizard himself, had been born to Muggle parents! Even more so for having herself a Mud-blood kid!
Would Hogwarts change me that way?
No. I wouldn’t let it. School had nothing to do with the way Regs was changing. How could he say only Purebloods had Magic when he’d seen Nymphadora transform? For him she wasn’t worth arguing about. He liked how our Mother’s gaze almost thawed into warmth when she looked at him better than the glares she’d been sending my way more and more often the last year or so. Not that I wanted her to look at me that way- not enough to change like he was.
But could I go seven years getting glared at by teachers and prefects? Would I change to make them stop it? Would a time come when I was so lonely, so hungry for companionship that I’d let myself change to get it?
If that happened, would I be more sad or angry?
Would I stop caring about exploring or learning on my own what people were like beyond the world that I had known in Grimauld Place?
Oh, I didn’t want to be here! Didn’t want to be here at all, cooped up with hundreds of Witches and Wizards, all of us finding out how to sit quiet in class and be proper.
Still, where else was I to go? Back home? Yeah, right. If I’d thought of it at the station, maybe I could have dashed away into the shadows and struck out on my own someplace. Like Diagon Alley maybe. But then, I’d still had the idea that Hogwarts was going to be different… Fun, maybe. And now that I knew better, I was stuck here in the middle of a huge, foggy lake!
Not exactly a place that was going to offer me any very hopeful possibilities…
Or was it?
Wasn’t there something about Hogwarts that my Mother hadn’t quite liked? Some reason she didn’t exactly want me to come? She’d told Mrs. Malfoy on the day we’d gone to tea that she’d have rather sent me to Dermstrang Institute. Why was that, when all of those bleeding great ancestors of ours had come to study Magic here in Slytherin House? If she and Lucius’s mother hadn’t taken such a long boring time talking, I’d have paid better attention. If I could remember, it might keep me from changing! If it was a choice between upholding the family traditions or staying someone who was friends with Nymphadora, I’d choose her, every time.
“And finally,” Hagrid’s voice slipped between my thoughts. “There’s Slytherin. Your House has the people you eat with. You live with ‘em, go to class with ‘em and do yer homework together. Help each other learn, see? All in all, your House’s- Well… It’s kind of like your family while your at school.”
I looked back at him. He set the oars in their locks and fumbled with a coil of rope in the bottom of the boat. How could he say people in Slytherin would be like my family as if it was a good thing? Were Lucius or the grease ball beside me to be some kind of new brothers? For all the differences that had grown between us, right then I ached for Regs.
But there wasn’t time to think about him now. We were almost to Hogwarts. Any moment we would be casting up on shore where my future would be waiting. What was it my Mother hadn’t liked? Maybe it wouldn’t make any difference at all. Or… it could be very, very important! I had to close my eyes and think fast! I had to remember!