May 23, 2004
Someone has left the door of the drawing room open – Aunt Ginny, probably, on one of her cleaning rampages, despite Harry's protests that locked rooms do not need to be spotless if no one but portraits will see the dust. Whoever has done it, they have left the door open just a crack, and that is all it takes to lure a six-year-old boy over the threshold.
The great house never fails to hold great surprises for a small child, but the drawing room is always locked, making it new and altogether intriguing. He sucks in a quiet breath at the glass cabinets, still filled with the dark and ancient instruments that have been passed down in the family through the ages. His wide turquoise eyes take it all in before flicking to the back wall.
It is unassuming at first – faded cream-colored tapestry interweaved with glinting gold thread. The sheer magnitude, though, is what draws him to the wall to stare, no more than six inches between his nose and the cloth, and he slowly reads the words at the top in a low mumble.
"The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black..."
It is beyond him to pronounce the next two words, but he takes note of them, tucking them away into an obscure corner of his young mind before letting his gaze travel slowly down the tapestry. Names, so many names, and no way he could remember them. He idly wonders why Harry has this great piece of cloth, covered in names and hanging in a locked room on the top floor of his house; then he hears Aunt Ginny calling his name down the stairs, and quickly escapes the room, making sure that the door latches behind him.
October 4, 2008
Uncle George is still as good at picking locks as he claims to have been in his youth, and he has passed this 'useful Muggle skill' on to his almost-nephew. Teddy, of course, thinks irritably that it would be a lot easier if his grandmother would let him get his wand already, so that he could open doors with magic, but perhaps this is better than nothing.
For the second time in four years, he slips into the drawing room on the top floor, shutting the door quietly behind him and walking over to the expansive tapestry on the far wall. A little taller, now, than the last time he stood there, a little older, and with more drive behind his curiosity, he scans the cloth, searching rather than absorbing. He is so intent, in fact, that he does not take notice when someone else enters the room.
"I see you found the tapestry."
He jumps and whirls around, locking eyes with his godfather, whose face holds both amusement and concern. Harry crouches so that the two are face to face.
"This door stays locked for a reason, Teddy. You shouldn't have come in here."
His mouth opens in protest, but Harry has already straightened, and has one hand on Teddy's shoulder, propelling him back to the door. "There's plenty of other rooms for you to explore, Teddy; toys in the guest bedroom, books in the library—"
"Where am I on that cloth?" Teddy interrupts, looking at his godfather with a demand in his eyes. He receives a level gaze in return, and it makes him shiver, but he does not look away.
"When you're older, you can talk to me or your grandmother about that tapestry. Right now, it wouldn't be good for you to think about it too much. Just run along and play, all right?"
"All right, Harry."
It is the sort of alright that really means I'll never stop thinking about it, and you can't stop me, but Harry doesn't need to know that.
December 24, 2011
Logic dictates that it is easier to let your absence go unnoticed in the middle of a busy and crowded holiday celebration, and it is with this in mind that the forbidden drawing room door is opened once more, this time with the use of a whispered Alohomora – not everything is made easier by the acquisition of a wand, but there are a few benefits, and this is one of them.
Once more, he is searching for his name on the tapestry, and once more, he is joined in the room; this time, he hears the approaching footsteps before he can be startled, and he sighs, letting his shoulders slump without turning around. He prepares to speak to Harry, maybe to offer an explanation for his repeated intrusion, but a different voice shocks him.
"Stand up straight, Theodore, your back will be mangled when you are older if you let your posture go to hell now."
It is his grandmother who has followed him upstairs from the festivities, not his godfather, and he turns slowly, back straight, heart pounding. This could proceed any of a thousand ways, and he is in unfamiliar territory; the offense is against Harry, but Andromeda seems to be the prosecutor, and Teddy wisely decides to let her speak first.
They hold eye contact for a long moment before Andromeda's gaze flicks to the tapestry. "My father had an identical one, hanging on the wall in his study," she breathes. "Each time Aunt Walburga scorched a member of the family off, ours changed as well to reflect it."
She glances back at her grandson, expression unreadable. He merely watches her. "You know this was my cousin's house?" she continues, more a statement than a question. "Sirius Black, your godfather's godfather. I'm sure Harry's told you about him—"
A mute nod is Teddy's answer. Andromeda lapses into contemplative silence, her eyes traveling the length of the wall.
"Where are we?"
Her neck jerks sharply as she twists her head to look at him. "Excuse me?"
"On the tapestry. I know we're Blacks, some of the boys at school—" Teddy swallows the sentence he has begun and starts again. "This is your family. Where are we?"
Andromeda looks at her grandson for a long time before shaking her head, lips drawn tight. "We aren't," she mutters, in a low, dangerous voice, before sweeping from the room. Teddy watches her go, and turns back to the wall. He gazes for a few moments, brushing one finger lightly over a scorch mark at eye-level, before following her back to the dining room.
August 29, 2016
The heavy oak door is left flung open this time, with no pretense of secrecy or stealth. Teddy sits on the floor, cross-legged, leaning back on his hands as he gazes up at the plethora of names. He doesn't move when Harry comes to stand behind him.
"You know, I'm older now."
Harry doesn't speak, which is good, because Teddy isn't finished. "I'm not on this tapestry. Neither is Grandmother. It still affects us, though, more than you'd think, especially since it hides behind a locked door every day. All these people—" he gestures with a wide sweep of one arm at the embroidered names that cover the wall "—are her family, her past. My family. My past. I guess they're the reason she thinks the way she does – she puts value in old families, you know, even if she'd never admit it. She left her own, but she still believes what she was brought up to believe."
Teddy lies down, on his back, eyes closed and hands behind his head. Harry just watches him. "They're not my family, though. I was never on that piece of cloth, and even if I was, it wouldn't mean a thing. My family ties aren't blood, they're love."
"Your family is us," Harry says with a smile.
"Well, yeah," Teddy says. "And the Weasleys are an old family, I guess, but not the kind I mean. Not the kind Grandmother was raised to respect."
"Andromeda has no problem with us," Harry says, in an attempt to be reassuring. "She's raised you as much among us as she has at her own house. She knows the bond you have with us."
"Not every bond," Teddy says, barely more than a whisper, and Harry suddenly understands. His smile grows.
"It's Victoire, isn't it?"
Teddy throws one of his forearms across his face. "I don't know what she's going to say."
"Victoire, or Andromeda?"
"Either."
"You'll never know until you try, will you?"
Teddy uncovers his face and looks up at his godfather, who grins down at him. "Bugger the ancient families, Teddy," Harry says affectionately, but there is a serious look in his eyes. "This is why I never wanted you to come in here; I didn't want you to worry too much about this. Wars have been fought when people put too much stock in the old bloodlines. I didn't want some austere-looking gold thread to inspire the same madness in you. After all, it's only thread."
"No worries of that," Teddy says, looking up at the wall. "I wouldn't let anything keep me from Victoire, not even my blood."
"I think Andromeda may be more understanding of that than you know," Harry says thoughtfully, and the two men look at each other for a long moment before leaving the room, one after the other. The door shuts, but it is not locked. There is no need.
June 6, 2020
The man who crosses the threshold is worlds apart from the boy who entered cautiously sixteen years earlier. He stands tall, respectably tawny brown hair contrasting with bright turquoise eyes, dressed in a smart set of black dress robes. His wand is in his hand, and he twirls it between his fingers, stepping deliberately across the room.
Coming to a stop at the far end, he looks over the tapestry that has danced in and out of his life over the years. His gaze is not searching, nor curious, nor hateful. It is respectful, and contemplative, and he takes in the ages of the Black family with his eyes until he makes it down to his grandmother's generation.
Bellatrix Black Lestrange, 1951 – 1998. Narcissa Black Malfoy, 1955 –
He watches the two names for a long time, each on one side of a small oval burn mark. His gaze turns to a stare, and then to a glare, and before he knows it, he has raised his wand.
"Incendio semper!"
Flame shoots from the tip in a jet, forking when it meets the wall and completely obliterating the names of his grandmother's sisters. His anger flows through his hands into his wand, and the flame continues, licking at the tapestry, growing, spreading across the wall. He struggles to hold his arm steady as the legacy of the Black family, dating back to the Middle Ages, burns.
He lowers his arm slowly when it is finished, and looks on. Smoke gathers near the ceiling, and he remembers what his grandmother once told him – 'Each time Aunt Walburga scorched a member of the family off, ours changed as well to reflect it.' So it was not just here; the other Black tapestries were destroyed as well.
Good.
"Teddy—"
He turns to look at his cousin (or at least, his cousin in a few hours, but she might as well have been for his entire life anyways), who has frozen in the doorway, staring at the wall with her mouth forming a slight O.
"Yes, Rose?"
She shakes herself, and looks at him, slowly smiling as she takes in his robes. "Come on, you've got to finish getting ready. You can't leave Victoire alone at the altar, can you?"
His mind flashes to the open yard of the Burrow – 'where my parents were married,' Victoire once told him, 'and where I want to be married, too.' He pictures her standing there, dressed in white. "No," he says quietly, half to himself. "I can't."
And Teddy walks from the room, swinging the drawing room door shut. He leaves the ruins of an ancient house behind him, and goes forward to begin a new one.
To his knowledge, no one has ever opened that door again.