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Nature's Nobility
Prologue
My story begins as do most, on the day of my birth. It was the 27th January 1928 when Orion and Apollonia Black were born. That day was indeed a paradox, exposing a world of new potential and powerful life and yet highlighting the greatest of human weakness, as it was on that day that my mother died. Occasionally when my thoughts slip back into that hazy obscurity I wonder if things might have turned out differently if she had lived. If she had been the one to raise me, guide me and impose moral ideals upon me that no inherent 'Black' could. However it was not so, and it never serves us well to dwell in our past. It is only when we have exposed our limits and indulged the power we received at birth, that we may bore back ceaselessly into our beginnings.
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I spent the first 16 years of my life living in Eastern Germany in the Black Forest with my father, brother and sister Lucretia. For the most part I was sufficiently happy, and particularly close to my twin brother (4 minutes my elder). My father worked for the German Ministry in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
The wizard Grindelwald had reigned undefeated for many dark years, and most had abandoned their dreams of future peace. On both sides the battle was unrelenting, and each had successfully recruited many supporters both human and none. My father threw his full efforts into habituating Grindelwalds' servants, but when a mortal man comes face to face with a Lord of eternal magnanimity he is inevitably doomed to fail – as is my understanding. However I do not suggest that my 'understanding' is unfounded – my father, who was not lacking in magical prowess, was defeated by Grindelwald, as were many others. He was destroyed, burnt beyond recognition by a Heliopath, Grindelwald's favoured dark creature on account of its flaming brutality.
It was a despondent spring night when my father died. I remember a dark barn owl perched awkwardly on our kitchen mantle, its smooth talons hooked precariously around the water stained scroll it carried. As I had stepped out into the cool night air, a thick dark fog hung in the distance, veiling the unseen obscurity beyond.
Almost immediately after we had received news of our deceased father, news arrived from the Ministry:
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE MINSTER FOR MAGIC
TO: Arcturus Black
FROM: Alberic Gaspard
In light of your recent services to the German Ministry and indeed your extensive contribution to the wizarding world in this dark time, you are awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class for "Services to the Ministry".
Please contact the Ministry of Magic by return owl immediately on receipt of this scroll.
Yours Sincerely,
Alberic Gaspard
(Minister for Magic)
Orion simply replied:
Arcturus Black, died 24th April 1944.
I had never, and have never since felt the presence of someone so dead, yet still lingering.
We were all badly affected by my father's death, although none more so than my brother. Perhaps ignorance had not allowed me to realise how close they had become over the years, however this was made painfully clear by the executor of my father's estate. Orion inherited our entire fortune - house, gold, and treasures. His despair fuelled a cruelty within him that I had not been exposed to before, and over the following months the closeness we had once shared was shattered by a deep centred resentment for the loss of his dearest mentor. A cold, starkness was now present in his tone and his sallow eyes now bleak voids conveyed a dark mistrust and pain. We became separated entirely, he spent most of his time away from home, returning sporadically to collect or return dark relics that he now hunted. By the time I left he was a non-entity, consumed entirely with an insatiable lust.
He remained at Durmstrang Institute, feeding his greed whenever time and money would allow. The last I heard, he had indulged most of my father's money in untold treasures, gin and tobacco. My sister Lucreitia went her own selfish way and by all accounts was last seen in Bulgaria, the wife of Ignatius Prewett.
I left Germany in the Summer of 1944 to live with my grandparents. My only chances of remaining in Germany had been under the support of my brother; however by the end of those few months he had grown almost to forget me entirely, forcing me to accept a conditional place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Though the Battle of the Muggle World and the raging war against Grindelwald continued, I found myself reaching a perverse peace moving away marked for me, the end of the holocaust.
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