This was written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments).
Assignment #3, Lineage Studies: What's in a Name? Task 1: Write about an object that has been passed through at least three generations of a family. (This can be canon or made up.) Restriction; no using Harry's Invisibility cloak
Other Hogwarts prompts are listed in the author's note at the end.
It was noted that it might be helpful to indicate the familial relationships, so quick note of that:
Sirius II - Father to Arcturus, Lycoris, Regulus I
Arcturus - Father to Orion and Lucretia
Orion - Father to Sirius III (of the dogfather fame) and Regulus II (the mysterious R.A.B.)
written between the lines
( 1909 - Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London )
"Arc! What do you think Father has brought us?"
In the doorway, Arcturus Black could see his little sister standing with her arms folded in a confident cross, grey eyes peeking out from under the dark black curtain of her fringe. He could tell she was trying to fill up the whole space, but she was only five, so she wasn't doing a very good job of it, he didn't think.
"I don't know," Arcturus said, looking back down to his book, leaning back into the mountain of pillows on the drawing room sofa he had planted himself on, just a few paces from the crackling fireplace.
"Aren't you a little bit curious?" she asked, and when Arcturus flicked his eyes up again, he saw that Regulus was toddling past the door behind her. When his little brother didn't stop to join them, Arcturus thought vaguely that he ought to go make sure the baby didn't get trapped in the cabinets again, but the thought soon passed. If he went and got the baby, he would probably have to watch the baby, and what he really wanted to do was finish this chapter. Last Arcturus had checked, little Regulus had been entranced by the brightness of the full moon outside, but he never seemed to stay in one place for long.
"Of course I am, but being curious won't change anything or make it comes any faster," Arcturus pointed out.
"I know," Lycoris sighed with the subtlest hint of a pout. "Do you think it's another artifact? That music box was beautiful."
"You collapsed to the floor within seconds, the moment you opened it," Arcturus deadpanned, then he lifted his eyebrow, even though he felt a little bit like smiling on the inside.
"Loveliest lullaby I've ever heard," she said wistfully. "I could still hear it in my dreams."
Arcturus was opening his mouth to tell her to go practice piano to distract herself when they heard the telltale sound of footsteps on the stairs. Their father had very heavy footsteps, so it could only be him, and Arcturus gifted his sister with a little smile. Her mouth had already split into a grin as she turned to look down the hallway, her braid swinging like a rope.
Although Arcturus could possible consider himself more invested in the chapter than he was in the surprise at that particular moment, it was only because of how close he was to the end; the book would always be there, but their father's attention was a rarity, and one he would not seriously pass up. Marking his page, Arcturus stood and crossed the room quickly, arriving in the doorframe just in time to see their father stepping up onto the first floor landing.
"Children," he said, glancing between them and seeming to decide that the baby's absence was not much of a problem, because he kept talking. "Come with me to the nursery."
After exchanging a look with his sister, Arcturus started towards the stairs, and for all her eager talk a moment before, she had fallen into a calm pace that mirrored his own, taking each step one at a time and shaping her face into a more serene excitement. He was willing to bet her mind was reeling at top speed, but she always got like that around their father. Girls were supposed to be subdued, the man usually said, and he doted on her most of all, when she was. Arcturus thought it was obvious that her mind was always ten steps ahead of her, no matter what face she was putting on, but he couldn't blame her for the effort.
On the top landing, their mother was already waiting with little Regulus in her arms. His chestnut brown hair was mostly hidden beneath a large hat, which she seemed to have given him to minimise the squirming. Arcturus and Lycoris had ink black hair like their father, but Regulus's hair was like hers. Arcturus saw that she had pinned up her own, which was smart, because the baby really liked hair. Regulus was almost three, but he still liked to hide under it when it was long, even though their father had been telling him to stop for a while now.
When their father opened the door, Arcturus walked in first, followed by Lycoris, then by their mother with Regulus. Arcturus noticed the new furniture immediately: three small desks, formed with a mixture of the same set of complementary woods. They were three different sizes, so it was easy enough to tell who owned each of them, but it was hard to tell what the woods were. As expected, their father did not leave them wondering at it for long.
"Desks for each of you," he started to explain, and though Arcturus thought it was a little bit obvious, he did not point out as much. Glancing over at Lycoris, he thought she was probably fighting disappointment that it wasn't a mirror that sucked you inside of it to go along with the music box that lulled you into an eternal sleep, but it wouldn't be easy to guess it from her face. Arcturus shifted his attention back to their father and the desks when the explanation continued. "Arcturus, yours is made from fir; the desk for Lycoris is primarily aspen; and Regulus's, when he is ready for it, is made from ebony."
They might not be dark artifacts to line the house's endless cabinets, but they were well-made—at least as far as Arcturus could tell, and he felt his taste was rather great. Already, he could picture lining up his current set of books, tucking away his notes in the drawer, and at the corner of each desk, there was a plugged inkwell that seemed to be carved into the surface. Approaching his own, he peered a little closer at the inkwell, and his father continued the spiel.
"The inkwells are self-replenishing, and the surfaces should be resistant to spills stains, but I expect my children to know better than to test this."
Arcturus had no interest in spilling anything, and Lycoris really didn't like to be surrounded by mess either. It wasn't completely the baby's fault that mess formed around him, but maybe that was who their father was talking to. Regulus was almost three, so he would need to start acting more proper soon. Their father did not even like it when they called him 'the baby,' but Arcturus was having trouble breaking the habit.
As Arcturus settled in the chair—more comfortable than it looked, with soft cushions padding the wood—he pulled open the drawer to investigate, but he could also see Lycoris starting to examine her desk out of the corner of his eye. Hers was the palest, the flourish of its back paneling just a little more feminine, but she was checking in her drawer, too. There was more space inside the drawer than it looked like there ought to be, but whoever had made it must have cast a spell on it. It would be perfect for their various home studies, though Arcturus expected the sofas and chairs would still be the most comfortable for leisure reading.
"They are wonderful, Father," Arcturus said earnestly, which Lycoris echoed.
"I've informed your tutor of the alternative workspace. If the nursery proves too much of a distraction, you will return to your spaces in the library," their father said in an even tone.
Exchanging a look with Lycoris, the two of them privately agreed that was not something they wanted. Their tutor usually made them sit at the single most uncomfortable table in the library, with no cushions, and in chairs that made their feet dangle. Arcturus was eight, too tall for his feet to dangle from most chairs, but he thought the tutor probably chose that spot just to make sure they would.
Resting a hand on the polished wood, Arcturus shook his head. "It won't be."
( 1933 - Le Vauquiedor Manor, Guernsey )
A full moon was casting its silvery glow from outside the open window—one of four lining the wall—when Lucretia padded into the nursery with slippered feet and her thick brown hair tied back for bed. She had been watching the wind tickle the leaves of the trees in the garden beneath her bedroom window, and something was making the softest whistling sound when she listened closely, but she could not quite tell what it was. The surrounding grounds were 'a sight to behold,' their mother often said. Their father would not directly say that it was better than the dark halls of the ancestral home in London where he had grown up—nor would their mother—but Lucretia guessed that they probably thought it. The house should have been her father's, but instead, he gave it to his cousin Pollux. There were not as many lovely trees around Grimmauld Place; just a park just across from the drawing room window. (And of course the Only Tree That Mattered, which hung in that same drawing room.)
Her cousins really liked it there, so she knew not to complain that it wasn't very pretty, but Lucretia thought she could probably stare out the windows of her own home forever.
Two little desks were flush against the middle two windows, and Lucretia smiled at the sight of her little brother, fast asleep at the smaller of the two. It had been their father's when he was her age, 'made from the wood of a fir tree,' he had explained, with little bits of ebony and aspen. Her own had belonged to her Aunt Lycoris, and she loved the pale wood grains so much she thought her heart would burst the first time she saw it. The desk had been shrunk for her, when first she got it several years before, but it had since been enlarged again. Now, it was their father's old desk that had been made smaller for little Orion.
He was drooling a bit, which was about the closet she'd seen him come to a mess recently—an impressive feat for a four-year-old. Lucretia thought it was sweet, but she could imagine the scrunched up face he would make if she dared to tell him, so she thought she probably wouldn't. Maybe she could tell Walburga, but Walburga's little brother wasn't as particular as Orion. Alphard was probably getting into worse than drool. Besides, Walburga liked spending time with the boys about as much as they liked spending time with her, which was to say not very much at all.
With that in mind, it was probably best just to keep the drool to herself.
Crouching down next to him, Lucretia looked at the parchment under her younger brother's hooked arm and squished cheek. He had been practicing his handwriting, copying a list of family names, as well as a list of common spells that were propped up against the wall framing the open window. The scrawl was still childish, but she thought it was coming along nicely.
After carefully nudging her brother to a sitting position, Lucretia hooked her arms under his and hoisted him up, situating her grasp to secure him with only a slight wobble. She decided to leave his parchment on the desk for the moment, instead walking him over to the bedroom just next to the nursery and proceeding to tuck him back into his bed. For the past several nights, he had been doing that: waking up and going to his little desk in the middle of the night and eventually falling asleep on the wooden surface instead. Lucretia could not make any true sense of it, beyond the likelihood that he was having difficulty sleeping, but she didn't want to bring it up to their parents in case there would be any punishment for getting out of bed.
She brushed some of the wispy black hair from Orion's forehead before pulling the blanket up to his shoulders with a pat. Having replaced her brother in his proper sleeping spot, she returned to the nursery again and settled, this time, at her own aspen-white writing sanctuary. The subtle breeze was tentatively reaching inside, and she breathed it in as she smoothed a piece of parchment to the surface. Picking up her quill and dipping it in the recessed inkwell, Lucretia began putting to parchment the song of the night sky.
( 1967 - Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London )
Regulus could not recall how long it had been since the two little desks had appeared in the nursery, but he remembered the day it happened. He had had noticed them even before their father had pulled Regulus and his brother into the room to tell them all of the things that could be done with these desks, or about how the larger one had first belonged to their grandfather Arctutus, and then to their father. That desk belonged to Sirius now, but Sirius had not explored it for long before that interest faded. Regulus's was as dark as the night sky and had belonged to their grandfather's little brother, who had also been named Regulus. The other Regulus had died years ago: cursebreaking accident on the Continent, like an adventurer from a story. As frightening as they were exciting, Regulus thought that the stories were probably easier to face from the safety of the house than out in the world.
Within the walls of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Regulus had his own adventures with the artifacts of their home, scattered across cabinets everywhere. He was not supposed to touch anything, so he really tried not to, but he liked to think about the strange objects and wonder at where each one came from. Just a few weeks prior, he and his brother had found a secret room hidden behind a portrait, full of things that did not look very important but felt no less like treasures.
Sirius had never been very excited about the desks at all, but Regulus loved to climb into the seat of his own, pretending like the nursery was actually the sacred realm of their father's study, and that his own desk was much like desk their father probably sat at a lot, while he was in there. Before he even knew how to write, Regulus would scribble down the parchment, feeling grand and important, just as their father looked when he did work in common areas, like the library or the drawing room. Regulus still wasn't allowed into his study, even though he was five now, but Regulus liked to think about it. He liked the way it felt when they praised his posture, complimented his attempts at tidy handwriting, encouraged the stillness of a scholar.
For the most part, Regulus liked to be still, but he liked their approval even more.
In his little desk were little notes, transcriptions, copied lists assigned by the tutor, all of which were meticulously organised. Some of the pages had recreations of family tree branches, while others were nothing more than his repeated attempts at making his signature look Just Right, because Regulus Black knew having a proper signature was very important, especially for letters. He loved writing letters—to Kreacher, mostly, and recently to Cissa, although he was not certain if Kreacher could read. Usually, Regulus would read it to the elf, just in case, and Kreacher always seemed very happy about it. Often, Regulus wondered what sorts of things their father liked to write when he was shut behind the study door, and whether there was anyone he wrote letters to, or if he just wrote things for himself.
Biting his bottom lip in concentration, Regulus scritched his quill across the sheet of parchment, writing out careful letters in careful rows.
'To Cissa,
Today, I found a jar with a snake on it, and there are tiny bones
and dust and shining bits inside. Sirius said that if you stare at the
carving's eyes for long enough, the inside turns into a real pet snake
that will do whatever you say. I watched it for a long time, but nothing
happened, so I think he was making it up. Have you heard of it?
I hope you are having fun at Hogwarts.
Regulus Arcturus Black'
Setting down his quill, he folded the parchment neatly into an envelope, hoping that his cousin would have a better answer about the snake jar. Bella would probably scoff and roll her eyes, while Andie usually thought Sirius was very funny and took his side in things like this. His parents would know, but if Sirius had been teasing him, Regulus did not much want them to think he was silly for believing it.
At the back corner of his desk, off to the right, materials for letter seals had been added, when Regulus said he wanted to practice his writing. There was a funnel with a stopper down at the bottom, carved into the desk to match the inkwell on the left side, and the dark green wax inside was charmed to always be melted. Picking it up by the bulb at the top, he dripped some of the wax onto the lip of the envelope, then picked up the seal press to squish the image of the Black family crest, watching it fan up a little at the edges. It was a little messy, but his chest leapt with satisfaction. Proudly, he put the materials back in place, letter ready for delivery.
"Kreacher," Regulus said, his voice small but certain, and within seconds, the old elf had cracked into the nursery. With a smile, he held out the envelope. "Give this to Cissa, please," he said politely.
"Kreacher will do as the young master asks," Kreacher said with a bow, accepting the letter before disappearing again with a loud popping sound.
For a beat, Regulus smiled at the empty space their house-elf had left behind, then returned to tidying his space. Back straight as a board, he was a little king on a little throne, one in a line of many, as he was meant to be.
additional author's notes
Additional Hogwarts Prompts:
365 Day Challenge - 144. (genre) Family
Insane House Challenge - 471. (item) Ink
Chocolate Frog Cards, Famous Witches, Hesper Starkey - Incorporate a lunar event (full/new moon, eclipse)
Writing Club, Character Appreciation, Percy - 14. (trait) Studious
Writing Club, Cookie's Crafty Corner, Beginning Knitting, Beginner Projects, Blanket Squares - Write about an object that has been passed down the generations
Writing Club, Book Club, The Handmaid's Tale, Aunt Lydia - (colour) Dark green, (word) Scoff, (word) Punishment
Writing Club, Showtime, Book of Mormon, I Am Here for You - 6. (word) Lullaby
Writing Club, Amber's Attic, Styles, Blackwork - 3. Write about a member of the Black family (POV for Arcturus, Lucretia, and Regulus II - think it might qualify for the 10 bonus pts)
Writing Club, Count Your Buttons, Words - 1. (word) Accident
Writing Club, Lyric Alley, This Is Me - 13. I am who I'm meant to be
Writing Club, Ami's Audio Admirations, The Going-Home Song - 1. Write about someone at home
Writing Club, Em's Emporium, Amber (Cheeky Slytherin Lass) - 2. Write about a character with less than 50 fics in the archives. (Arcturus currently has 47, Lucretia has 29)
Writing Club, Angel's Arcade, Lin Kuei, Sub Zero - 1. (plot point) Being tricked into something, (weather) Snowing, (character) Orion Black
Writing Club, Character Based Prompts, Aaron Hotchner - 1. Write about someone who does not show emotion often
Writing Club, Bex's Bazaar, Fun Facts About Elephants - 2. Write about grandparents (loose interpretation - gen-spanning, and Reg thinks about Arcturus in respect to the desk)
Summer Seasonal Challenges, Best Friend's Day - Write a fic for one of your best fanfiction friends (taintedshimmer - my oft co-writer and eternal Black family brain twin 3)
Summer Seasonal Challenges, Fire Element - (object) Fireplace
Summer Seasonal Challenges, Shay's Musical Challenge, The Sound of Music - Write about a strict family
Word Count: 3,048