AN- I am of the opinion that JKR does not think before she writes backstory, especially for characters she is not fond of. Therefore, this story will be incidentally AU. I will disregard birth, death and order-of-birth dates on that over-hyped Black Family tree, if only for the fact that the woman doesn't know how to count. I also feel that good and evil is not nearly as black-and-white as Ms. Rowling seems to believe, therefore, Tom Riddle, for example, will have slightly more personality than being a meglomaniacal sociopath, at least in the beginning.
Disclaimer- I do not own the characters, setting or world or even parts of plot of this story. This is the intellectual property of JK Rowling (though, with some of her recent ventures into the Potterverse, I'm beginning to think it might be best if the fans took over) and the legal property of Bloomsbury and Scholastic Publishing Companies as well as the Warner Brothers Company. No money is being made, I'm just trying to fill in some of the gaps and resolve some issues left by the author lady.
Always Pure: The Rise and Fall of a Wizarding Dynasty
"In each family a story is playing itself out, and each family's story embodies its hope and despair." -Auguste Napier
Privately, Cygnus had always hated that tapestry. He'd tried to like it, tried to feel something when he looked at it, though what he did not know. Perhaps he wanted to feel pride as he stared at those stark black letters, the lines that crossed and re-crossed so many times it made him dizzy to look at them for too long. Inevitably, his gaze would drift upward, to words neither faded by time, nor marred by abuse. Toujours Pur. It was a statement that Cygnus Black had memorised before he could speak. Before he understood that the curling black letters meant something to people, that the mere mention of the surname 'Black' to the right people could open locked doors without the utterance of a charm. Before he knew that blood was indeed thicker than water. It would be many years hence before Cygnus could understand what those words, those lines, those names meant. And still, more time would pass before they meant the same to him. You see, the names on that tapestry were not simply written, they were burned. And one could not truly understand the process if one did not touch the fire first.
This is where our tale begins, with one Cygnus R. Black, whose largest discomfort thus far in his life was a crick currently afflicting his neck. Not an uncommon result of looking up at the names of generations of wizards and witches who had passed before him, while deliberately ignoring his own artfully embellished name in the corner. All the other names had stories, what his father called "legacies" whenever he was caught staring at the old piece of cloth. Such meetings resulted in Father getting almost misty-eyed as he recounted tales of great-great-grandsomethings fighting dragons, burning Muggle villages or other such feats of heroics. For his part, Cygnus would play the dutiful son, nodding in all the right places and all the while wondering what this had to do with him. Those stony-faced strangers who sometimes shouted at him from their portraits not to run in the halls seemed as far removed from his life as characters from faery stories. Certainly, some of their exploits seemed as fantastical. And who was he? Nothing more than a boy, grasping at shadows.
Not that his life was not fulfilling, nothing could be further from the truth. That intangible word "legacy" aside, Cygnus lived a charmed life, the eldest of three siblings, he was born with the proverbial silver spoon clamped firmly between his lips. He wanted for nothing as a child, remarkably, becoming an agreeable person because of it. Since his demands were constantly met, he had never developed a method of displaying his displeasure if a desired object was kept from him. That is not to say that Cygnus never felt the pleasure of accomplishment; praise or affection, particularly from his father, was a prized constantly sought after and occasionally hard-won. Pollux Black was a stern, distant figure, much like the stone carvings in his stately home. The dark hair Cygnus had inherited was always severely parted on the left and his heavy moustache seemed to have been painted on. Cygnus never saw his father less than formally attired or in a position of repose and that was precisely how Pollux desired to live his life.
It would be lovely to say that he married someone who brought out his warmer qualities, coaxed a smile beneath the black moustache, but Irma Black (nee Crabbe) was nearly as formidable as her husband. They had not married for love, but their children never saw them quarrel and because the situation was advantageous to both, the match was considered a success by both parties. Pollux had been handsome, Irma had been comely and both had been wealthy. What more could one desire in a marriage? While the two were never bedfellows (what reason could there possibly be for sharing a bed when one had the money for two?), they had united often enough to produce two other boys in addition to Cygnus: Alphard and Orion. Alphard was a sweet boy, (soft, his father would say), prone to spending afternoons in the gardens, looking after ill rabbits and birds with broken wings. Orion was something of a mystery, the Jacob to Cygnus's Esau. He idolized and despised his brother in turns, causing Cygnus to grow far closer to Alphard as a result.
Soon, however, Cygnus would not be close to anyone for a while. His Hogwarts letter had come that morning, right on schedule. He did not derive any particular joy from the experience; his name had been down from birth and all his family had attended for years and years. Still, his father had clapped him gruffly on the shoulder and he had been graced with a rare smile from his mother, so the morning was a happy one.
His own numbness to the experience notwithstanding, he still held the letter loosely in his left hand, staring up and up until the names stretched back to a time before there even was a Hogwarts and he wondered, not for the first time, how he was ever going to deserve a place amongst them.