Prologue: Black Death

Buckinghamshire, 1959

Hidden miles from anything living, concealed under a dozen charms, was a manor house so old, so vast and so enviable, that the owners of the house were the most hated family in the Wizarding world.

The manor house loomed ominously over its sprawling front lawn, where the setting sun cast an enormous black shadow of the house over the small groups of families and acquaintances who were walking up the long gravel path towards the front door.

Upon entering Black Manor, Fidelia Lestrange found it hard to conceal her envy.

It was ironic, really, that Fidelia was so jealous. All around her, where she stood in the spooky old entrance hall, women were looking at her and scowling. She was beautiful by anyone's standards: tall and slim with long golden hair, a mask of superiority, an expensive dress and a rich husband. But to Fidelia Lestrange, power was not in beauty in the real world. Power was in money. Money made the world go round. Money got people from A to B and B to Z. The Black family had more money than any other family in the country.

Fidelia stood on her own, staring up at a painting while she waited for her husband to catch up with her. The picture itself was a morbid tribute to a recently deceased member of the Black household. In the picture, the man stood tall, proud and alive in a black cloak, clutching a black cane with a pure silver handle in the shape of a snake's head. In front of Fidelia, a house elf was just finishing off sealing the plaque at the bottom of the enormous painting.

Pollux Phineas Black

1880-1962

Tourjours Pur, Ne lâche.

"Fidelia..." wheezed a man's voice from behind her. "There... you are..."

Fidelia knew that the breathless man was her worthless husband. She did not turn around. The sound of his voice and the stench of whisky and sweat made it clear enough that it was him.

She continued staring at the painting. "Where have you been?" she asked him.

Her husband panted a little more before gulping. "Running round the grounds like a bloody madman. I found the boys without your help. I'm fine, too, thank you for asking."

Fidelia said nothing.

Her husband came to stand beside her, facing the painting. He wiped his sweaty brow with the sleeve of his cloak, then leaned forward to read the inscription on the gold plaque.

"Tourjours Pur..." he read loudly, causing others nearby to turn around. "Mmm. Fitting. Good choice."

Fidelia shook her head subtly. "No. It's too predictable."

Her husband spun round with an expression of manic alarm on his purple face. "Keep your voice down, woman!" he hissed. "We are at a funeral! A Black family funeral!"

Fidelia gave her husband a pointed look. "Take a look around you, Claudius. How many of these people do you think actually liked the man?"

"That's not the point," Claudius growled. "Now hold your tongue or I shall silence you."

Fidelia laughed, cruelly, then turned away from him in search of the widow. She wouldn't be hard to find. Several funeral-goers kept leaning out from their small social circles to peer into the doors to the drawing room, from which no noise was emitted.

"What does the other bit mean, then?" asked Claudius.

"Hmm?"

"After the Tourjours Pur bit. What's that supposed to mean?"

Fidelia turned back round to the painting and read the plaque again.

" Ne lâche. Never weak."

Her husband tutted.

"We need to talk to Irma Black," Fidelia told him, returning her gaze to the silent drawing room.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because it's polite."

Claudius scoffed.

Fidelia looked down at the two young boys stood side-by-side next to Claudius. She allowed herself an internal smile. There was a group of children screaming and running around in another room. Her boys were not so badly behaved.

"Go and play with the other children, my darlings. Father and I will only be a minute."

The two boys looked at each other and frowned, but marched off in the direction of the squealing nonetheless.

Fidelia and Claudius walked sombrely through the guests, shuffling between dense groups of people until they finally came through to the drawing room. Fidelia could not have been more pleased to leave the miserable hallway. Even in the drawing room, where the dead man's family sat huddled together in their fake grief, were a brighter sight than the gaggles of gossiping families from poorer families and more remote corners of the country.

The drawing room was gloomy, yes, but elegant. The oak-panelled walls, the velvet armchairs and the grand piano were reminiscent of the sort of home Fidelia wished she'd owned. If only they had the money, the connections...

Irma Black was easy to spot. She was sat in a plush armchair at the top of the long hall-like room, flanked by standing members of her family. She was an old woman. Wrinkled and white-haired but not withered. She was not crying. She hadn't cried at the funeral, either. A dab of the handkerchief here and there, perhaps, but nothing more.

Fidelia approached the widow, followed by her husband. As she came closer, she noticed the sleek black cane that Irma gripped. It was the same snake-handled cane that her dead husband was grasping in the painting.

"Madam Black," Fidelia curtseyed. "We're very sorry for your loss. Your husband was a fine wizard."

"Oh, my dear, don't be sorry," Irma pardoned. "Pollux had been praying for death for nigh-on five years. His death is a relief to us all."

Fidelia blinked. "Well, then. At least he's at peace now."

"Indeed," Irma nodded. "I thank you for attending. Claudius, it's been too long."

Fidelia felt her cheeks grow hot as her husband side-stepped her to speak to the widow.

"It has indeed, Madam, but the fault is entirely mine."

"I know."

Claudius fell silent, turned red, then stepped back again. Fidelia straightened her back.

"This must be your radiant wife. Fidolia, is it?"

Fidelia managed a broad smile. "Fidelia, Madam."

"Ah, yes..." Irma Black mused, looked up and down at Fidelia. "Pretty young thing..."

Suddenly, from another room, the sound of a screaming child pierced the ears of everyone at the wake. Fidelia's children never screamed. She watched Irma and her family for reactions; clues as to whose child it might be. She saw Irma roll her eyes.

"Cygnus...," Irma drawled. One of the men beside her, the taller one whom Fidelia remembered had walked beside the floating coffin at the burial earlier, leaned down to listen to Irma.

"Control your children. It's ungainly for girls to lark about at their grandfather's funeral."

Cygnus Black, whose ashen face and dust-coloured hair showed him as the most miserable man in existence, nodded curtly to his mother. He stood up straight again, and glanced to his right, where a young woman with black hair stood demurely.

"Deal with them," he ordered her in a low voice. Fidelia raised her eyebrows. However, instead of the young woman scowling at her husband and stalking off, she merely bowed her head and slinked away.

"Grandchildren..." Irma tutted, distracting Fidelia and Claudius from the minor drama. "They're an inconvenience at the best of times. Do you have children, Madame Lestrange?"

"Yes," Fidelia smiled politely. "Twin boys. Eight years old."

Irma's eyes brightened. "Eight, you say? Both boys?"

Fidelia nodded.

Irma sat back in her chair. "Intriguing..."

The screaming of the child continued. Fidelia was the first to move, quickly slipping between the guests in the drawing room, out into the hall, where the screaming was louder. No sooner had she crossed the room to the door through which the children had left, her sons had come running back into the hall. They were covered in dust and cobwebs, their faces white. Rabastan was wailing and screaming in such a high-pitched voice that some of the guests were laughing.

"Boys?" Fidelia walked quickly towards them. "What, in the name of Merlin, do you think you're playing at?"

Rabastan was too hysterical to answer. Rodolphus, who looked ill, stepped closer to her. "We want to go home," he whispered. "Please, Mummy, please can we go home?"

"Of course we can't, this is a funeral," she replied, but looking around at the amused guests made her wish for the ground to swallow her up.

"Please, Mummy, we're scared!" Tears formed in her son's eyes. He threw himself at her feet and gripped her legs. There was more laughter from guests. Fidelia turned and glowered at the loudest of them.

"Rodolphus, let go. You're being silly," she prised her son from her skirts. She then turned to Rabastan, who was still screaming, and grabbed his shoulders. "Pull yourself together, Rabastan. Come on..." but he continued to scream. She shook him. "Stop screaming!"

Around her, there was not a single guest who wasn't at least chuckling. That was, until, Fidelia's husband crashed into the hallway, barged through the crowds and stared furiously at his sons. He grabbed the younger one, the screamer, and hauled him up by the collar to his eye level.

"Stop screaming," Claudius Lestrange growled. "Talk, or it's a silencing charm for you."

Rabastan stopped screaming immediately. He hiccupped and panted, still crying, but still managing to talk. "There's a zombie in the cellar! It was Mr Black! He's come back to life! He's in the cellar!"

Fidelia expected the guests to be in hysterics. They weren't. They were scandalised. She saw their faces and felt very faint. "Claudius, we're leaving."

"Too right we are," he replied. "You, boy, have embarrassed us all..."

Claudius continued to berate his son while Fidelia took Rodolphus' hand and steered him towards the front door. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of the corridor down which her sons had been lead away earlier. At the other end of it, far away from the gathered guests, was the demure Druella Black. She was kneeling in front of the three Black girls, gripping the shoulders of the brown-haired one, talking angrily at her. The little one was crying into her teddy bear. The oldest one, with black hair, was watching her mother with a smug enjoyment that escalated when Druella slapped her daughter across the face.

"I don't like it here, Mummy," Rodolphus whimpered. "I don't want to ever come back."

"Me neither, my darling," said Fidelia vaguely. "But some things have got to be done."

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A/N: Thank you for reading.

The rest of the story will be set a few years in the future, when all three of the Black girls are at Hogwarts.

I hope you enjoy. Please leave a review, no matter how short.