"I don't understand, Sirius," said Harry as they entered Sirius's parents' spooky old manor. "Why would you want to bring Perseus here of all places? Whenever the Order has a meeting here, you leave him at home with Lucy's parents."
"Well, now that you're home for Spring Break, I wanted to show you both something," said Sirius, gesturing to Perseus, who was in Harry's arms, sleeping peacefully. (They wanted him to sleep, because otherwise he usually cried.) "Also, Phineas Nigellus is supposed to meet Perseus today. I expect he'll be pleased and upset at the same time."
"Why?"
"Dynastic reasons," said Sirius, as he led Harry up the stairs. "You'll see."
When they entered the room where the two-way portrait was kept, it took a few minutes, but finally they heard the voice of Sirius's great-great-grandfather.
"I was told you had a message for me, Sirius," said his scornful voice. "My nap was disturbed."
"Yes, over here," said Sirius, gesturing for his attention and taking the sleeping baby from Harry's arms. "I'd like you to meet your new great-great-great-grandson, Perseus Black."
"Ah! Wonderful!" Phineas Nigellus's expression turned from irritated to quite pleased. "I was beginning to worry about you, Sirius, I had a male heir by the time I was thirty, although of course he got disowned...Now, let me see that baby."
"I do enjoy showing him off," laughed Sirius, who had been holding Perseus against his shoulder. But at Phineas's request, he held the baby out clearly for him to see, sort of like Rafiki and Simba.
It looked a bit funny, because Perseus was still sound asleep, his thick black hair falling slightly into his eyes, with the same casual elegance as his father's. The baby's skin was fair, except for his perfect rosy cheeks, and his whole body moved with each sleepy breath. Since he was still learning to hold his head up, it sort of lolled to one side; his mouth was open slightly.
"Yes, he is gorgeous," said Phineas approvingly.
"Everyone says that, though," Harry told him. "Literally everyone."
"Simple genetics," Phineas replied haughtily. "When has a Black not been gorgeous? I would have expected nothing less—that is, Sirius, if you told me earlier that you'd finally planned on keeping the line extent."
"That's not why I had a baby," said Sirius. "Lucy and I sincerely wanted a baby, that's all, and we would have been just as happy if we'd had a girl. We planned on calling a girl Andromeda, after my favorite cousin."
"Lucy?" said Phineas. "Lucy who?"
"Marsh. That is, until I married her."
"Excuse me, but I do not recall Marsh being one of the names on the Sacred Twenty-Eight," said Phineas, rather suspiciously.
"That's because it isn't," said Sirius. "Perseus's mother is Muggle-born."
"Oh, is she!" Phineas Nigellus looked as if Sirius had let slip an awful expletive. "There were plenty of pureblood women who could have given birth to your heir, Sirius—and you still picked a Mudblood?"
"Don't call her that!" Sirius barked.
"It's much better than inbreeding," Harry added, remembering the Blacks' way of keeping the line pure.
"Do you expect me to have a child with a woman who I don't particularly care for, and is most likely already related to me, just for the sake of having a pureblood heir?" Sirius demanded.
"Well, yes," said Phineas. "That's how our family has been doing it for seven hundred years, in case you hadn't noticed."
"The only requirement I had for the woman to have my baby is that I love her," said Sirius, ruffling Perseus's hair. "I'm proud that Perseus shares her blood, and someday he will be too."
Phineas still looked disapproving. "Walburga is turning in her grave, I'm sure of it."
"All the better," said Sirius. "If she was alive to meet her grandson, she'd blow every capillary in her body. But do you, Phineas Nigellus, give Perseus your blessing—whether you approve of who his mother is or not?"
"I suppose," Phineas told him reluctantly, "but only because he shares my blood as well. Someday he will be head of the Black family, as I once was, and I certainly don't want the line to become extinct. Until you, Sirius, produced an heir, it was only a matter of time. So I will give Perseus my blessing."
"Well, thank you," said Sirius.
"Perseus, an heir." Harry smiled, thinking of how the innocent, sleeping baby held protectively against Sirius's shoulder would someday inherit everything around him, as well as all the family's wealth, and be the head of the family, as Sirius was now.
"Now, if that's all, I'll be getting back to my nap in the Headmaster's office," said Phineas.
"By all means," said Sirius, waving him off with his hand and nodding. "Now, Harry, like I said earlier, there was something I wanted to show you."
Sirius headed downstairs and led Harry to the drawing room, where they ran into Kreacher the house-elf, who was muttering to himself again. When he saw Sirius, he threw himself onto his knees and bowed exaggeratedly, then said, "Kreacher lives to serve his Master, how good it is to have him back..."
"Stand up," said Sirius. "Do I have to pull you out of my ass every time I see you?"
"Kreacher apologizes, Master," Kreacher said, then muttered, "Kreacher sees Master is with the Potter boy again, but Kreacher does not know the baby, Kreacher wonders who he is..."
"Why, this is your new Master, Kreacher," said Sirius. "My son, Perseus Black. You'll have to obey his orders too."
Kreacher looked shocked for a brief moment, then bowed again. "Kreacher is most pleased to meet Young Master, he looks forward to a lifetime of serving him..." Then he muttered, "Kreacher hopes Young Master does not turn out like Master, what a disappointment he will be, Kreacher is sure..."
"Hope you don't mind his mother is Muggle-born," Sirius added in an offhand sort of way. Kreacher's already-large eyes seemed to grow to the size of dinner plates.
"No, it cannot be, Master has done the unthinkable, he has bred with the Mudblood, he has polluted our most noble family, the Mudblood has infected Young Master with her dirty blood, oh, poor Kreacher, what can he do, if his Mistress only knew, oh, how she would cry, her own grandson, full of filth..."
"You're the one who's full of filth, Kreacher," said Sirius scornfully. "Now take that back!"
"Kreacher said nothing," Kreacher replied shiftily.
"You will not speak about my family like that," Sirius repeated. "Take it back. That's an order."
After what seemed like an immensely long silence, Kreacher said, "Kreacher takes it back."
"Our family was already polluted," Sirius snapped, "full of hatred and spite and blood purists like you, and I think it'll be nice to have a change. Perseus has Black blood, and he's my heir, so as soon as he gets old enough to give 'em, you're going to have to obey every one of his orders, whether you want to or not."
"Change my dirty diaper, Kreacher!" said Harry in a squeaky voice, moving Perseus's tiny hand up and down. Sirius laughed.
"Kreacher cannot wait to obey Young Master's orders," said Kreacher, then crept away, muttering incomprehensibly, looking distraught.
"I hate that elf," Sirius said darkly. "I'm not going to raise Perce the way my parents tried to raise me. If he becomes the kind of person my parents would be ashamed of, I think that means I've done my job right."
"Your family would have set aside a whole day to burn you off the family tree if they were still alive, wouldn't they?" said Harry. "If you hadn't been burned off already, I mean."
"They would've restored my picture just to burn me off a second time, and I probably would've celebrated." Sirius laughed. "Family trees are very patriarchal, which puts some pressure on me—the last male Black before Perseus was born. So if I hadn't had any male children, the Black line would have died out completely, and unless my male children were to have a pureblood mother, the Black line isn't going to be pureblood anymore. It doesn't bother me or you, but I imagine it would bother my parents a great deal."
"I'll still never understand it," said Harry. "Blood purity, I mean."
"Neither will I, but that brings me to what I wanted to show you," said Sirius, heading over to the family tree tapestry that hung on one of the drawing room walls. "Come here."
"Isn't that tapestry just yet another 'family heirloom' that you hate?" asked Harry.
"We couldn't remove it—just like I thought, it had a Permanent Sticking Charm on it," said Sirius. "So I decided to do the next best thing instead. Lucy helped a bit, too, but it was my idea. Take a closer look."
Harry found himself shocked. "W-Where are the burn marks?"
"The only thing that's burned off now is the old family motto—'Tojours Pur' doesn't really apply," said Sirius, pointing to the place at the top of the tapestry, next to the Black family crest, where the Black family motto (which translated into "Always Pure") used to be. It was just a burn mark now. "So we are in the market for a new motto, but we couldn't think of one."
Still in shock, Harry pointed at the restored names—and the new ones too—as he read them. "Isla Black...Bob Hitchens...Phineas Black II...Marius Black...Cedrella Black...Septimus Weasley?...your Uncle Alphard!...and there's you and—oh my God, is that—?"
"Yes, it is." Sirius nodded and pointed at the gold line connecting his name with the name Lucy Marsh, then the single gold line stemming from the two names, Perseus Black. "I restored Andromeda's name too, and I added her husband and daughter." Sirius pointed at the newer names, Ted Tonks and Nymphadora Tonks.
"So if you couldn't get rid of it...you restored it instead?" Harry asked.
"I added back everyone who was disowned, and if they were disowned for marrying Muggle-borns, I added their spouses on too," Sirius explained, looking at first happy, but then a bit nervous. "There was one more thing I wanted to do as well, but I figured I should get your permission first."
"What could you possibly want to do to that thing that needs my permission?"
Sirius shrugged uncomfortably, pointed his wand at the empty spot right next to Sirius Black, and added, in a flash of light:
James Potter.
"More of a brother to me than Regulus ever was," Sirius said quickly. "But I can take it off if you want—"
"No, it's okay." Harry smiled.
"Very well." Sirius smiled too, and then added two more names to the tapestry: Lily Evans and Harry Potter.
"Uncle Sirius," said Harry, laughing.
"And you know what the best part is about adding Perce?" said Sirius, cradling the baby affectionately against his shoulder. "I fell a bit too far from the tree, so I got burned off. But since I'm the head of the family now, I can assure you that Perseus is never going to get burned off or disowned. Perseus is never going to wonder whether he's worth it, or feel hated by his family for being who he is, because unlike my parents, I'm always going to put him first. No matter what, I'll always be there for him, and I'll always love him."
"Don't forget me," Harry added. "Perseus has me."
"And you'll always have me," Sirius reminded him, and scooped the two of them up into a hug. "It just goes to show you, Harry—family isn't about blood. Family is about love."
"Maybe that'd make a good new family motto," Harry told him.
"Well...maybe it would." Sirius zapped the tapestry once more, and added those words right next to the Black family crest: Family is not about blood. Family is about love.
"That's better," said Harry. "No more nasty burn marks."
"And no more pure-blood mania," Sirius replied, Harry and Perseus still in his arms. "Welcome to my family, the both of you."
-end-