7-9-19: Edits made for spelling and adjustments to updated internal continuity.
Chapter Three: The House of Black
Quite unlike the Peaks District, it was sunny over London and at least fifteen degrees warmer, thanks to a flashbang heatwave running up from the south. It was dragging a weather front behind it, so the local meteorologists didn't so much predict the possibility of a thunderstorm to follow, but rather they knew there would be a thunderstorm to follow.
One always did, you see.
The warm July sunlight shone down on the London neighborhood of Islington. It was far from the affluency that had once elevated it above London's rubbish. That pedestal had crumbled, returning it to being part of London's rubbish. The Upper Street had fallen to the criminals and the prostitutes and the drunkards in the eighteen-eighties and the neighborhood had only declined from there. It was derelict and dirty now, the streets chipped at the edges. Where the store-fronts weren't empty, the windows were cracked or papered over or occasionally barred to discourage any more rock-chuckings. Some shop keepers kept a nice little gun under the counter by the registers; others had a rifle mounted on the wall behind them. It was not a particularly safe neighborhood; not a place where kids should be raised but that happened anyways.
Islington had also taken heavy damage from the German blitzes during World War Two, destroying over thirty-two thousand housing units. Low-rent council flats had sprung up all over the neighborhood practically overnight, in a well-intentioned effort to get people residing in the beleaguered neighborhood once again. But the low cost of living had brought in a distinctly lowbrow type of renter who was more likely to chuck his empty beer bottle at the hole in the wall to make it bigger and complain about a shit flat, than he was to actually fix his shit flat and make it less of a shit flat.
But some of the beautiful Georgian terraced houses remained and one notable area was a square called Grimmauld Place.
Grimmauld Place stood out in people's memories simply for the fact that no one could quite stumble into it on purpose. This upset the ambitious middle-class who wanted a piece of the Georgian houses at an obscenely low price. They always managed to take a wrong turn or completely overshoot. No amount of map-checking and direction-getting would ever deliberately bring a person into Grimmauld Place the first time around.
Moreover, it happened to groups of people quite often. When the house-hunters traveled in packs, they could prowl up and down Caledonian Road all afternoon, but they could never find that wrong-looking side-street and usually ended up in a weird little pub that they hadn't seen until they'd near hit their head on the low-hanging sign. But a solo explorer could find that side-street, as long as they kept their eyes on something other than where they were going.
Grimmauld Place only seemed willing to admit one person at a time.
But while Grimmauld Place seemed unusually difficult to find when you were actually looking for it, there wasn't much to see. The centerpiece was an overgrown park half the size of a regulation basketball court and things chittered ominously in the tall grass. The terraced houses were old and most of them were unoccupied. As such, with no one to maintain them, they had lost their splendor. The brickwork had gone dull, the wood trim showed termite whorls, and any paint had chipped right off. Here and there, the brass numbers on the houses had slipped sideways and the hedgegrows had gone ragged with neglect.
Provided that one successfully arrived on the narrow run-down street, they would experience the urge to leave just as quickly. Anxiety would prickle at their spine and they'd feel something akin to cold air breathing down the back of their neck. Some would claim to have seen shadows slide strangely in the narrow spaces between the houses, or slip from tree to tree in the courtyard. Something dark and undefined, following them as they moved along the street. Always, a nameless sense of dread would grip them until they had no choice but to double-back and make a sprint for the exit.
Those who had found the square and had shared their experiences noted a single common factor: This anxious, unpleasant feeling always intensified after the discovery that the houses were mis-numbered.
That number twelve Grimmauld Place did not appear to exist.
It disturbed the house-hunters in a way they could not rightly explain, but that sense of dread and unease drove them away before they could start searching for any explanation.
With a good reason, for number twelve Grimmauld Place was the residence of the London branch of the Black family. Orion Black had raised every anti-Muggle ward ever created, and a few he had made up out of sheer determination, to keep the dirty filthy crawling rats away from the house of his fathers. The dreadful anxiety that a Muggle experienced was the mildest of the lot.
It had been over a decade since the last Muggle had gotten close enough to spot the human bones in the neighboring yard. In the same breath, it had also been over a decade since the wards had killed the last Muggle.
The Black family was defined in the Wizarding world as "Old Nobility", meaning they could count back over fifty generations of unbroken magical inheritance. This lofty title presumed that the line had produced no Squibs. Of course, Old Noble families like the Blacks would simply die before admitting to the possibility that Squibs were such a thing that could happen in their family tree. They touted their family motto "Toujours Pur" like it was not just a banner, but a birthright. A child of the Black family would be a child with the most powerful of magicks. They just could not conceive an alternate outcome.
There was a great deal of pressure on the heirs of families like the Blacks, to make a good marriage to a fullblood witch and bear a suitable son. Ideally, two sons, in case the first-born croaked too soon. Daughters were fine; it was always good to be able to marry them off into a perfect family. But only so long as there was a son to inherit. Nothing ended a family line faster than a first-born daughter.
But before a young heir could march up the aisle to the alter and perform his most important and sacred duty to the Wizarding world, their first task was to become a wizard of great noteriety. To become a wizard worthy of a lady's hand in marriage. Most proved their worth and etched their name onto the history books in the hallowed halls of Hogwarts. Where their magic was put into a crucible and forged into everything it was meant to be.
For Sirius Black, that time had come.
Finally.
His hands shook slightly as he took the letter from the delivery owl.
The great gray owl shifted impatiently from foot to foot while he slipped the envelope out of the leather mail pouch on its back. Once Sirius's trembling fingers had re-secured the snaps of the pouch, the owl fluffed its feathers and then took flight, winging out through the owl slot in the top-floor conservatory.
Sirius didn't need to see the wax seal to know where the letter had come from. The owl had brought the letter straight to him instead of depositing it in the mail slot on the other side of the roof. He was the recipient and he knew this was the only letter that would ever come directly to him instead of being routed through his parents first.
He broke the wax seal and took out the letter.
Dear Mr. Black,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment, to be purchased at Diagon Alley in London.
Transportation to Hogwarts has been arranged through the Hogwarts Express. Please arrive on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross Station in London by 9:00 a.m on August the 25th. The ticket is enclosed. If you happen to miss the train, please step to the street-curb and summon the Knight Bus. The Knight Bus will transport you to the next station for pick-up.
We look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts.
Yours sincerely,
Rosemary Morningstar
Deputy Headmistress
P.S.: You are cordially invited to attend a fete hosted by Lord and Lady Potter on the eighth of August on their estate in Somerset, for all incoming first year students. Details enclosed.
If Sirius hadn't already been sitting down, he would have sunk into the nearest chair just to catch breath that he hadn't lost. His heart thrummed in his chest from nerves, both excited and anxious. He had known that Hogawrts was in his future. He had known it from the age of three, the moment he had set the tablecloth on fire during Christmas dinner, after Bellatrix had stolen a large bite of Christmas cake from him. His first burst of accidental magic. The family elders had praised him for weeks. 'Fire in his soul, this one! A powerful mage for sure, to make fire on his first try!' they had all declared in boisterous tones.
Sirius had been reminded of this over and over throughout his childhood, knowing that it was a sure fact. Blacks had attended Hogwarts for generations. In the family manor out in the countryside, there was a long corridor of just their school portraits. Black after Black, aged seventeen or so, clad in the green and silver of Slytherin House and draped in the trappings of those graduating with distinguished honors.
These days, it was all his parents spoke about in his company.
But the school had never seemed to be than just a nebulous figment of his fever dreams. Hogwarts was something his cousins gossiped about when he was out of the room, squirreling away their textbooks and summer homework like they were concerned he might learn personal secrets. There had been nothing truly real about Hogwarts, for all that everyone seemed determined to keep it all from him. The moment of departure had always seemed so far away that Sirius wondered at times if he had managed to make it up.
But here the letter was, in his hands. The parchment crinkled. It smelled like ink and owl feathers. The quill had smeared slightly on several words. The blue curling letters gleamed in the sunlight coming through the windows overhead. It was real and he was holding it.
He had been waiting for this day for so long.
The conservatory door gave the creak it always gave when someone opened it too wide and, thinking it was his mother, Sirius shoved the Hogwarts letter into his pocket. He wouldn't be able to keep its arrival a secret for very long, but just for a few minutes, he wanted to be the only one who knew about it. He managed to compose himself into a calm neutral bearing; the perfect fullblood mask that he had spent eleven years practicing. It wiped away all traces of emotion from his expression. It displayed no weaknesses that his parents could exploit.
"Boy! Boy, where are you?" demanded a nasally pitched voice that most certainly did not belong to his mother. Walburga Black, for her many and varied faults, did address her first-born by name.
It was Estelle, his nanny.
Sirius stayed exactly where he was, in the cushioned chair that overlooked the expanse of London that sprawled out beyond Islington. It had once been a village on a hill. While not a very steep hill, he could still catch glimpses of the River Thames.
"Boy, come here or you shan't get the biscuits Ms. Flores made!" Estelle said, her tone whining.
Sirius rolled his eyes. He couldn't believe that the nanny still expecting him to come the moment she called or she'd deny him biscuits. That might have worked when he was four and through Estelle was the only way he could get the chocolate treats, but he was eleven now. He had long since found his way past the child safety charms to snitch a baked good or two from the kitchen.
"I haven't got the patience to wait on you!" Estelle snapped, stomping forward away from the door. "If you don't come right this instant, I'll-"
"Hex me?" Sirius interrupted at last, turning around in the chair to shoot a lazy, weary glare at his nanny. "Stop threatening me with something you can't even do."
Estelle's face reddened magnificently. She was somewhere around the age of twenty-six years old with a long thin face and the corkscrew blonde curls characteristic of the Fawley family; a family classed as Greater Nobility and on the list of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Which was a lie, as far as Sirius was concerned. All of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families claimed thirty-five generations or more of unbroken magical inheritance, but here was Estelle Fawley. The shame of her family.
The Squib.
"Enough out of you, boy!" Estelle ordered, snapping her fingers. The motion produced the barest spark of electricity. She wasn't entirely without magic, but just by a hair. "Come along. Your mother is making some horrid noise about a garden party and she wants you presentable."
Ah yes, the luncheon hosted by the Delgado family, to celebrate their daughter's entry into Hogwarts. Walburga had ordered a new set of formal clothes for the occasion, both for herself and for Sirius. A brand-new set to "replace" the other set he had already worn through, if you believed what his mother claimed. Sirius hadn't worn through the last set of formal clothes. He had only worn them once. But it wasn't fashionable to be seen in the same thing twice at a formal outing. The Season wasn't over yet.
Sirius got up from the chair. Estelle couldn't order him about anymore; he was too old for that. But when he mother starting squawking, you'd best believe he'd hop to. It was one thing to dismiss the nanny as a pesky fly. But he wouldn't dare do the same to his mother.
"Hurry up." Estelle tried to grab him by the shoulder to hurry him along, knowing that if Sirius lagged behind even one second, it would be her who felt the flat of a hand.
"Get your hand off my person you miserable Squib!" Sirius ordered, smacking her hand sharply. "Don't touch me! You're not allowed to touch me without my permission!"
"Stop being a brat you sniveling worm!" Estelle yelled back. She raised her hand to deliver a retaliatory slap, but then her hand veered away to touch the heavy collar around her neck. Slapping her charge would put her in the coal shed with the rats. A Squib servant was not permitted to raise their hand against a Noble, and especially not an heir.
Sirius knew it too. He smirked and gave her hand one more sharp smack, leaving the pale skin a bright pink. To remind her that she had a place and that was to throw herself over a puddle so he wouldn't get his boots wet. Maybe it wasn't her fault that she had been born a Squib, but if she didn't stop being so bitter and nasty about it, she'd never find another household to take her.
The Black heir marched out of the conservatory with his chin held high, shoulders down, and back straight. He made sure to look every inch the prim and proper little lordling his mother expected him to be, well before he trotted down the stairs to the next floor. Down there was the nursery, which had been converted into a school room once he and Regulus had been old enough to have their own bedrooms on the same floor.
As the oldest child, Sirius had the bedroom right off the landing. There were actually two rooms behind the door; a well-appointed sitting room that would have been appropriate for entertaining guests if he'd ever had any to bring all the way upstairs. There was a fireplace under the mantle of which flames burned at all hours of the day and night, making the room sweltering hot. It was the first chief reason Sirius spent most of his day in the conservatory or the family library when he could get away with it.
Then the bedroom proper, with the four-poster and his extensive wardrobe. All of the furniture was upholstered in dark green and light cream and there was a recurring motif of serpents that never failed to make Sirius shudder if he stared at them for too long. In the dark of night, he often swore that he saw them wiggling. In his bedroom was the second reason he didn't spend much time in his room. The Portrait.
Four feet wide by five feet tall, it was an incredibly detailed and exquisite oil painting of two ancestral Blacks. A little brass plate at the bottom of the frame named them as Adelaide and Thorold Blaca. The completion date of the portrait was given as 1170 A.D.
Presumably, they had black hair like the rest of their descendants, but it was tucked away and hidden under caps and hats to keep the nits out. Adelaide Black must have been suffering from an outbreak of spots when the painter had begun, for her face was frankly infested with angry red pustules. In between the red pustules was unhealthily pale skin and she had dark smudges under her eyes, showing that she had not been sleeping well.
Sirius suspected that his grandcestor had been suffering from a case of pox rather than adult acne.
Thorold Black wasn't much prettier to look at, though. His eyes bulged right out of his head. His beard was so thick and scraggly that it could have doubled as a nest for a pet bird. The tip of his nose was cherry red and the rest of his visible skin was so dry it was practically scaly, and slowly peeling off in white plaques. Every now and again, he reached up to scratch irritably at his neck.
Sirius couldn't believe that so much loving detail had gone into a portrait so horrid.
Worse yet, he knew the Portrait was in his room just so his parents had someone reporting on his movements. Thorold and Adelaide didn't close their eyes until Sirius extinguished the light in his bedroom and they were awake the instant his feet so much as brushed the floor, no matter the time of night. If he wasn't studying his lessons when he was supposed to, they shared unhappy looks and cleared their throats a little too often. They disappeared just as he went for a shower every evening and sidled back in as he returned.
Sirius entered his bedroom with Estelle following properly three paces behind him. Walburga was examining the newly delivered clothes with a keen eye, judging the cut and the color for all they were worth. Sirius waited patiently just outside the doorway. It might have been his bedroom, but his mother dictated the rules.
It was bizarre, alien to see her so close to the top of the house. This wasn't her place.
After a moment, Walburga looked away from her inspection.
"Sirius, come here." she said, beckoning with one slightly clawed hand.
The eleven-year old heir dutifully trotted over to his mother's side. Walburga flicked her wand and the clothes she had been examining plastered themselves up against Sirius's body.
"The color suits you. I should have guessed sooner. You look dreadful in green." she commented.
"Then my Slytherin uniform will look make me look positively hideous." Sirius opined, looking down at the dark blue waistcoat snuggled up to his torso.
"A hard burden you will bear, I'm sure." Walburga said dryly. She touched a fingertip very lightly to his hair; so lightly that Sirius barely felt any pressure. "Everyone looks tad silly in the Hogwarts uniform, but wear it with pride. You are a Black."
She flicked her wand again and the clothes whooshed off of Sirius to go drape themselves over the dressing screen. She flicked her fingers in the smallest of dismissive gestures and Sirius went behind the dressing screen to change.
He stripped off his day-wear and pulled on a silk gray shirt with long sleeves which he tugged experimentally. They did not loosen. Rats, they weren't detachable. If he got too warm at the party, he was just going to have to suffer through it and drink more liquids.
The trousers were the same dark blue as the waistcoat and an inch too loose around the waist. He tugged on one of the belt-loops, causing the built-in tailoring charm to kick in. The waistband sucked itself in until it was a close fit, but not a tight one. He could still bend over and put on a pair of socks and the provided leather loafers.
The waistcoat was the last to go on and he fastened all of the silver buttons down the front before he stepped out from behind the dressing screen for his mother's inspection. Walburga made a motion for him to turn around and Sirius did so, turning a slow circle on the spot.
"You look the part, for once." she said, a little grumpily. She clapped her hands briskly. "March!"
Sirius's legs jolted minutely before there was a poof of displaced air and March the house-elf appeared. He was an old house-elf, predating even the odious Kreacher. He wore a crisp linen cloth that had turned gray over the years and had developed a hunchback within the last several. There was no hair left on the top of his head or in his ears. However, a fair bit still remained in his nose.
"Mistress summoned March?" the house-elf croaked, stooping into a bow.
"Fetch the mother-of-pearl plated cuff-links for Sirius, from Orion's wardrobe. And one of the pocket-watch chains. Whichever best matches the cuff-links." Walburga ordered.
"Right away, Mistress." March stooped out of his bow and poofed away.
"Dreadful girl!" Walburga snapped at Estelle, who still stood just beyond the doorway. "Come here and make yourself useful for a change!"
Somewhere between the conservatory and the heir's bedroom, Estelle's entire demeanor had changed. From waspish and bitter, to utterly servile. Her shoulders slumped and her head was bowed so far that her chin folded down over the collar around her neck. Estelle had learned years ago that she wasn't to look Walburga Black in the eye until explicitly ordered to.
Estelle hurried over, her hands clasped in front of her. "Yes, Lady Black?"
"Fetch me a hairbrush and then hang Sirius's clothes up properly. Neatly. Just as you were taught. If I find even one wrinkle out of place..." Walburga let the threat hang and stroked her wand meaningfully.
"Of course, Lady Black. Right away." Estelle said quietly.
She crossed the room to grab the hairbrush from its customary location on the dressing table and placed it into Walburga's waiting hand. Then she moved over to the dressing screen to retrieve the clothes that Sirius had flung across the top. A sensation like anxiety prickled down Sirius's spine and for once it had nothing to do with his mother actually laying her hands on him for the first time in seven months.
Estelle would go through his pockets and remove anything inside. She was supposed to do that anyways, but it also satisfied her nosiness and her magpie-like tendencies. She secreted things away if she found them in his pockets. Little trinkets with no substantial value, like colorful marbles or shiny stones that he had found. Things Sirius would be chastised for keeping. But she took them for herself knowing that they didn't belong to her because it gave her a little thrill to steal from a Noble heir.
She might hide away his Hogwarts letter, just for kicks.
Walburga began to drag the brush through Sirius's hair while he watched Estelle pluck the trousers off the top of the screen. He waited until she had begun to dip her hand into the pocket before he said: "Don't wrinkle my Hogwarts letter."
Estelle froze briefly.
"It came. Finally. Did they plan to keep you waiting right up until the end of the month?" Walburga grumbled. "Bring it here, dreadful girl. Don't stand there like a lump, bring it over!"
Estelle's hand trembled as she ever-so-carefully removed the Hogwarts letter from the trouser pocket. She brought it over to Walburga, the parchment still folded over from when Sirius had stuffed it in there.
Walburga snorted. "I can't read it like that. Unfold it, Squib! This should not be a difficult concept for your feeble mind to grasp!"
She whacked Estelle's hand with the hairbrush, causing the woman to stifle a pained yelp, and then resumed combing Sirius's hair as though nothing had happened. Estelle dutifully unfolded the letter and held it so Walburga could read the two short paragraphs.
"That seems to be in order. They could have addressed with your titles, though." she said. She snorted over the post-script. "Potters... Ridiculous lot. Dignity could strike them on the forehead and they would think they'd been hit by an acorn."
"We're not going?" Sirius asked. "But isn't that rude?"
Walburga pulled hard on the hairbrush like she was a battling a knot that didn't exist. The eleven-year old winced and he felt a few hairs part company with his scalp.
"Of course we shall not. The Potters are not the sort of family we Blacks should associate with. Yes, they are an Old Noble family and yes, we should be respectful to them, but that does not mean we are obligated to spend any time around them." the Black matriarch declared. "Squib, place the letter and envelope on the dressing table and resume your task.
"In any case, Sirius, the invite states that it will be for all incoming first-years. Do you really want to be seen with those filthy Mudbloods?"
"No, Mother."
It was the answer his mother wanted to hear, but the truth was, Sirius would have liked to go to that feté. Just to meet his year-mates before Hogwarts brought them together for ten months.
Once his shoulder-length hair was combed straight and neatly tied back in a low ponytail, Walburga pinched the cuff-links through the sleeves' buttonholes and clipped the pocket-watch chain onto the waistcoat. The end where the watch itself would have hooked on hung loosely in the left pocket. Walburga stood back and examined her son for anything she could fix. She brushed off a piece of invisible dust from his shoulder and straightened his collar.
"Finally, you look like a proper young heir." she said.
Sirius tried not to grimace.
"Come along." Walburga beckoned with her claw-like hand. "It will not do to be late."
"Is Father coming?" Sirius wondered, following his mother out of the bedroom.
"No."
Regulus was peering out through his cracked-open door, but he shut it almost the moment Sirius glanced his way. He felt bad for his little brother, almost. It was hard being kept inside during the summer when their lessons had ended. Sirius empathized with his brother's cabin fever, but at the same time, he got a smug sense of glee that not only was he leaving the house today to visit a new place, he would be at Hogwarts before the end of August.
Stuck in Slytherin, sure, with the rest of the nonsense-mongers his parents wanted him to make friends with, but he would be out of here.
Sirius and his mother descended six flights of stairs to the ground floor, which was always a strange experience for the eleven-year old heir. Especially do to so in the daylight with the mid-morning sun coming through the pentagonal windows on each landing. He always shimmied down on the railing in the dead of night, to avoid setting off the babysitting charms that were supposed to alert his parents if he was trying to sneak into the kitchen.
But those charms were on the stairs. Not the railing.
The ground-floor corridor was hung with crystal chandeliers that never seemed to throw off enough light. The closed doors just off the corridor led to the front parlor, the dining room, and the drawing room. At the far end of the hall was one last door that led out into the back garden and then a flight of stairs down to the basement kitchen and the rest of the cellar.
They headed out the front door, which was black and sported a bronze doorknob and a matching set of hinges. When the lights were turned out, it was nearly impossible to determine where the door actually was. Even in daylight, Sirius still felt like he couldn't find the edges of the doorframe and might veer too close to the wall. He trailed a little too closely behind his mother and kept his eyes fixed on a point between her shoulder blades so the strange illusion wouldn't throw him off course.
It was a good thing Grimmauld Place was pretty much unoccupied, otherwise a very observant Muggle might have taken note of the black horse-less stagecoach parked on the curb. The door latches were the shape of silver serpents. The hubcaps on the wheels were snake-heads. The lantern hooks were hooded cobras. Even the footman was dressed head to toe in black, his suit barely offset by the silver fastenings down the front. The entire ensemble parked out in front of Number Twelve was remarkably hard to miss. Bless the Muggles, but they did. The few curtains along the square didn't so much as twitch.
The footman greeted Walburga with a mumbled but respectful "Madam" and pulled open the door. The step-ladder lowered itself automatically. The footman offered his gloved hand to the Black Matriarch out of obligatory chivalry, never mind that Walburga didn't take it. It was simply expected that he would offer it in the first place.
Sirius climbed into the stagecoach after his mother and the footman latched the door shut. The interior of the stagecoach was somewhat less ridiculous than the exterior, but the Blacks' long history in Slytherin House showed in the abundance of emerald green, from the silk curtains on the windows that Walburga instantly pulled, to the gilt upholstery of the bench seats. The sconces on the coach walls were the open gaping mouths of some manner of snake, possibly a python. Each one held a smooth polished sphere of crystal cliryogen, which gave off a soft silvery glow.
The stagecoach set off a moment later, swaying slightly, but stabilization charms stopped any of the bumping and rocking. They would have to fall off the White Cliffs before they experienced any severe turbulence.
The Delgados lived down in Kent, east of the City of Canterbury. The exact location couldn't be mapped and proud fullbloods like the Delgados lived as far from every Muggle village as they could manage. It would take about an hour to get there.
Walburga made a tiny coughing noise. "Sirius."
"Yes, Mother?"
The Black matriarch didn't respond right away, but instead adjusted the drape of her skirt so it fell more evenly around her ankles. Even sitting down, she was the image of Noble haughtiness.
"Your Hogwarts letter has come." she said. "Do you know what this means?"
"That I am now to have the privilege of carrying our house on my shoulders." Sirius replied, repeating the one thing his father had shouted at him time and again.
"Precisely." Walburga nodded primly. In her lap, she folded her hands over one another. "In one month's time, you will join with the ranks of your esteemed peers in Slytherin House. They are already familiar with our family through Druella's daughters, but they have yet to meet the heir. The future of the House of Black. The first impression you make will be the most important first impression you will ever make.
"Your first month in Hogwarts will be especially crucial to the formation of trusted peer groups and the forging of connections to exceptional future allies. The Black family has never been without its closest companions. You will not be there just to hone your magic, but to plan your future.
"You will be joined by a fine crop of Noble heirs, including the Delgado's eldest daughter." Here, Walburga managed to peer down her nose at her son despite never moving her head. "Yessenia Delgado will be expected to make a good marriage, like many of her peers. Do not permit her to pressure you."
Sirius scrunched his toes in his shoes in lieu of frowning. A good marriage and the birth of a son were considered the two most important things he would ever do with his life, according to both of his parents.
But he was eleven.
No one in his social circle really started worrying about marriage contracts until sixteen, when the bride and groom could legally consent to the union. It was ridiculous, in his mind, to start concentrating on that thing now.
Besides, Sirius did not want to get married.
"The young Mistress Delgado will be joined in Hogwarts by Lady Remi Chenault, Lady Faith Morningstar, Mistress Alexandra Moon, Madam Damaris Boice, Madam Orianna McQueen, Madam Pascaline Yu, and... ahem, Madam Stormy Sinclaire."
Just from the way she had hesitated before the last name told Sirius that she Did Not Approve. She had also sounded out 'Morningstar' rather slowly. The Sinclaires were a good family, but they were nominally Hufflepuff. The Morningstars likewise tended to gravitate towards Hufflepuff, but they were also a family of Old Noble, so Walburga couldn't bring herself to be anything less than stiffly polite. Nothing was wrong with Hufflepuff House, of course. They favored the disciplines of hard work and dedication, but like the Ravenclaws, the Hufflepuffs were a different calibre of wizards that the Blacks did not regularly associate with.
Gryffindors were right out.
"I realize that this list is rather lacking, so it is vital that you move quickly to secure allies within the families. You do have the fortune of being one of the few Old Nobles in the upcoming year. It sets you apart. Use it to your advantage." Walburga instructed. She expected no less from him after all. "If you must, you may seek those of a lower standing. The likes of the Glassier, Valenzula, Conaghan, and Finley will make respectable enough brides for a Black."
Respectable because Clan families were always desperate to marry up; to increase their standing in the Wizarding world. They gained greater privilege if they married into a higher family.
"If it comes to it, we will also consider the Escalantes, the Cantwells, the Cappines, or the Lunells. They all have daughters within a few years of your age." Walburga added. It was undesirable, of course, to have to wait for both parties to reach an acceptable age of marriage. A last-ditch choice, but no one would react too harshly.
"What about the Hayashi family's daughter?" Sirius asked, realizing that the list of girls had been missing that particular name. "Ray, uh... Reika Hayashi. She's an Old Noble and she's starting at Hogwarts this year."
"Heiress." Walburga corrected tightly. "The Hayashi family is matrilineal, like you'd expect those tainted savages to be. Daughters inherit. Your son would get nothing. She'll marry a Mudblood with nothing to lose, the same as her mother, mark my words."
That sounds perfect. Sirius thought, if for no other reason than that his mother didn't like it.
He knew nothing of the Hayashi family except what little he had seen of them in public, but he didn't think any marriage proposals would be handled any differently. Tradition dictated that Sirius should be the one doing the asking and certainly it would only be polite to inform her that he was interested in a diplomatic arrangement. It wasn't something he would have to worry about for another five years, but perhaps if he locked in a proposal now, it might make his parents less inclined to set him up with someone else in the future.
Either way, the young Lady Hayashi would also be expected to make a marriage to someone of full magical birth. But the patriarchal priority of the Magical world meant that no Noble-born wizard with any significant status would dare marry a witch whose status would be above theirs. In short, if Lady Reika Hayashi was pressured to marry equal or down one, she would be short on options. That left a lot of room for Sirius to make a move, if it came to that.
"As I do not have access to the Delgados' guest list, I cannot be certain who of those families will be in attendance. Certainly not the Sinclaires, though, and very few of the Clan families. That I can be sure of." Walburga stated. "Nonetheless, there will be witches your age there. There will also be dancing."
Sirius tried not to groan.
"Do not make that face, Sirius!" Walburga snapped. "I know it is not your favorite activity, but you must endeavor to put forth the necessary effort. Until you have something of your own to boast about, dancing is your social currency. It is time to start thinking of your future. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mother." Sirius nodded. He groaned inwardly all the same. He was terrible at dancing: the waltz, the foxtrot, the quickstep. All the forms of ballroom dancing that a young Noble like he was expected to know and execute acceptably.
It hadn't helped that his dance teacher had been a one hundred and twenty-nine year old witch a foot and a half taller than his seven-year old self. She had smelled like mothballs and Sirius had managed to accidentally dislocated one of her fingers while she had been showing him proper hand placement. He had panicked, but the old bat had simply popped the finger back into place and commented that it tended to come out nowadays. Sirius had spent the entire four-month course worrying that the elderly witch was going to fall to pieces in the middle of a lesson.
"Sirius." Walburga's voice snapped, drawing his attention back to the here and now. "What rank is the Delgado family?"
"They are Greater Nobility." Sirius answered. "They have over thirty-five generations of unbroken magical inheritance in their family tree, but they are not a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight."
"How are you to address Joaquin and Valentina Delgado?"
"As Lord and Lady Delgado."
"How are you to address their daughter?"
"As Mistress Delgado. Unless invited to do otherwise."
"They have two young sons, Dante and Rafael. What is the correct form of address for them?"
Sirius tilted his head. "Who's older?"
Walburga smirked. "Rafael. What is his form of address?"
"Master Delgado. The younger son is addressed as 'Sir Delgado'."
"Correct. And yours?"
"Young Lord Black."
"And what do you not permit?"
"I do not permit anyone lesser than me to address me informally. I do not permit any slight against my person or my family. I do not permit those below me to hold power over me."
"Very good." Walburga croaked.
The words did not warm Sirius any, because they were not words of praise. Just an affirmation of what he already knew. The proper forms of address had been drilled into his head since toddler-hood, though he'd had little occasion to use them. His mother was just making sure he hadn't forgotten them.
"The Delgado family is lower in rank than the Black family. This means, Sirius, that Mistress Delgado is not your immediate peer. You are not obligated to speak to her until her parents have introduced her to you." Walburga said. "Once you are introduced, you will greet her like a gentleman. She is not permitted to ask anything of you. You are permitted to refuse any of her requests, regardless of her position as the host's daughter."
Once again, the old witch managed to look down her nose at her son without moving her head.
"You hold the authority and the power in any interactions with the other children. Do not forget that."
Sirius nodded. "I won't, Mother."
How could he forget? His mother wouldn't let him.
Sirius had a feeling that lectures that reminded him of the superiority of the Black family were only going to increase in frequency now that Hogwarts was an ensured thing. Now that his parents had something of note to talk about.
The coach swayed on through the journey. Walburga eventually removed a leather bound book from a side-pocket in the carriage and began making important notes on something or another. It was a very large book and it sat cumbersomely in the woman's small lap. Sirius had seen that book hundreds of times before. A thousand times, or millions if he was so bold to make such a high estimate. It seemed permanently attached to his mother's side, never more than a step out of reach. She had probably charmed it like that.
Sirius didn't know exactly what was in the book. His parents always told him that was none of his business and Uncle Alphard had simply said "Everything!" in a would-be mystical tone. Uncle Cygnus, oddly, had been a touch more forthcoming with the information that every Noble Lady had a book like that. Sirius assumed that it was indeed everything his mother needed to know about the places she went and the people she interacted with. All of their social strengths and weaknesses, their social connections, maybe even their favorite foods and the way they took their tea. Anything she needed to know to make her look like the omniscient and accommodating hostess.
Sirius tugged aside the green curtains to watch the countryside roll past. The route kept them away from Muggle roads and their roaring motor vehicles, following what the Muggles suspicioned were fairy paths. They skirted around every town and village in the way, but occasionally trundled through a farmer's field. He caught glimpses of the buildings as the stage coach blew by and even briefer glimpses of what it looked like down the roads.
He wondered what would happen if the coach went through one of the Muggle villages instead of around it.
Theoretically, not a thing. There were various charms on the carriage that kept it hidden from Muggles, layered over one another so thickly that removing them all would be like peeling off the rind of a particularly tough orange.
Muggles were generally kind of dumb when it came to magic. They had been told over and over that it wasn't real, it didn't exist, and so they eventually believed that whole-heartedly. So that was the angle that magic took. It encouraged to think that nothing unusual was going on, playing off the mind's amazing capacity to trick itself.
If the stage-coach had to go through a Muggle town, the magic would tell the Muggles that nothing was there. At most, they might get the sense that something large had just thundered past them and they might feel the need to step out of the way, but in the end, they would tell themselves that they were imagining things. They might even feel a sudden breeze. But they wouldn't perceive of anything solid and real.
The stage coach passed north of the Canterbury and gave it a wide berth as the path turned southwards. From out the window, Sirius could see the same steel and glass buildings that also grew on the London skyline. But Canterbury's skyline was far lower in comparison. It kept in prominence the spiked towers of the Canterbury Cathedral.
Not ten minutes after the outskirts of the city had passed out of sight, the carriage began to slow to a more trot-like pace. On either side of the path, the trees had grown thicker, the branches weaving together overhead to create a canopy. Walburga closed her leather-bound book and slid it back into the side-pocket.
"Remember, mind your manners." she ordered.
"Yes Mother."
The trees cleared away on one side of the path, giving way to the sight of a gorgeous Spanish manorial house. The exterior was adobe brick, properly reinforced to handle the typical British weather. The roof was orange-red tile and it sloped to let any rain wash right off. The doors and windows were topped by half-round arches and surrounded by intricate faux-iron grill-work that invoked the imagery of two dragons. The open jaws were positioned just at the end of a row of red carnation bushes, so it appeared that the dragons were breathing fire. A cantilevered balcony on the first floor ran the length of the house, wrapping around along the sides and presumably along the backside as well. It wasn't a big house. It wasn't the biggest that Sirius had ever seen. But it screamed a sense of wealth and opulence that the older Noble families enjoyed.
The stage coach rolled up the crushed pink quartz drive to the motor court, making a half-circle around a centerpiece of flowers and fountains. It stopped at the front of the house. By the front stairs waited two members of the household staff dressed in serviceable black clothes and white gloves, a bit more formal than what they would normally wear, but suitable for the company of the day. They had plain blank faces like they had gone dead inside long ago. The thick leather collars were uncouth for an event like this and so had been replaced with a polished steel chain that clinked audibly when they bowed.
The servant on the left stepped forward to open the coach door. He offered his hand to assist Walburga down the step-ladder, but she slapped it away; not about to put her trust like that in a Squib. Sirius clambered out after her. The soles of his loafers hit the crushed quartz with a truly unsatisfying crunch.
I want my boots back. He thought, missing the sturdiness of the dragon-hide. His lower legs felt weirdly exposed.
"Lady Black, young Lord Black. Welcome to the House of Delgado." the servant on the right said. He gestured to the loggia at the top of the stairs and bowed again. "Please proceed directly through the courtyard. Lord Delgado awaits you in the garden at your pleasure."
Walburga nodded shortly and beckoned imperiously to her son. Sirius followed her up the marble steps into the loggia. The columns that ran from roof to ceiling had no distinct style, but on the tops and bottoms of each column was the relief of a bull. Out of the corner of Sirius's eye, he saw stone tails flick from side to side and hooves paw at the ground.
From the loggia they walked into the inner courtyard. It had red brick, the color of which about matched the roof tiles. Another fountain served as the centerpiece and the trellises were heavy with climbing vines for shade. Another cantilever balcony also ran the perimeter. On the far side of the courtyard, through a second loggia, came the soft sound of music, the gentle titter of laughter that only the well-to-do could produce, and a slightly louder rush of water like the Delgados had put in their own river. Waiting just on the other side was the man of the house himself.
Lord Joaquin Delgado was a tall lean man with dark eyes, dark hair, and fast, clever hands. He was rather good-looking in all the right ways and he wore his formal luncheon clothes quite well. As the host, he was more extravagantly dressed than his guests so he could be found more easily. He wore a short jacket in rich blue and gold, and a white shirt with a thin black necktie. Covering his lower half were tights rather than trousers (it exposed more of Lord Delgado than Sirius was comfortable seeing) and boots that barely rose above the ankle. Finally, flung over his left shoulder was a short mantle of the finest pixie-worm silk; a muted gold on the outside, but a bright scarlet on the inside. Everything was luxuriantly embroidered in every color imagineable, in swirling designs that seemed to shift on their own the longer Sirius stared at them.
"My dear Lady Black," Lord Delgado flashed a perfectly white smile. "Welcome to my humble abode. It's such a pleasure and an honor to have you grace us with your presence. The ride down from London was smooth, I hope?"
"Quite smooth." Walburga assured him. She smiled back, which did frightening things to her face. She extended a hand and Lord Delgado took it in the loosest of grips. "Thank you for inviting the House of Black."
"My dear lady, I would never dream of thinking otherwise. It is our pleasure." Lord Delgado said, and his eyes shifted down to Sirius. "Young Lord Black, an honor to have you with us today as well. And a surprise. Your parents seem keen to keep you out of the public eye, if you don't mind my saying so."
"Mother and Father have their reasons." Sirius replied.
"A necessary precaution, you understand." Walburga commented, looking at the older wizard like she was daring him to disagree.
"Yes, such a sad business that effected us all." Lord Delgado said, nodding his head. "I confess, I have not let my Yessenia off the estate without my supervision since the beginning ot the year. I have my Rafael, so my legacy is secure, but I do so adore my daughter."
"I'll be at Hogwarts before the end of the month." Sirius said. It was hard to judge if that was the thing to say right now. "It is time I begin to make friends among my peers."
"No better time than an early start." Lord Delgado agreed, nodding solemnly. He made eye contact with Walburga again. "Lady Black, if you can spare a few minutes, there is someone I would dearly love to introduce you to."
"Oh?" Walburga made a show of not looking very intrigued. It wasn't often that someone was introduced to her. She was well-connected. She knew just about everyone.
"This individual, I believe, is someone we should all become acquainted with. He has great ambitions for the future that would come to benefit us all." Lord Delgado said, beckoning her and Sirius along. He knew that he had her interest and seemed to be relishing in it. "And he has allies among the other Noble families. The Averys and the Dolohovs, just to name two. Quite well-connected already, this young man."
"Prominent names." Walburga agreed. Neck-deep in Ministry affairs, both of those families. Powerful enough in their own right.
"Magnetic." Lord Delgado said, smiling. "He's rallied by quite a few of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. You know how hard it is to impress the Fawleys and they seem rather taken with him."
"Come now, Lord Delgado. You mustn't keep me in suspense."
"He's just over here." Lord Delgado said, gesturing to an area of the back courtyard where he had indeed installed his own small river, which ran the perimeter of the cobblestone and acted as a natural barrier between the courtyard and the green garden beyond. By the low safety wall was a group of five or six people, three of which Sirius recognized as the patriarchs of Old Noble families.
When they were in appropriate hailing range, Lord Delgado raised his hand and called out: "Excuse me!". As the heads raised inquiringly, he slipped into the group and extracted a younger man with a polite: "If you gentlemen do not mind, I need to borrow our esteemed guest for a few minutes. There is someone he needs to meet. You'll have him back, don't fret."
"Another introduction, Lord Delgado? I thought I had already shaken hands with everyone here." the young man in question protested, but he allowed the House Lord to lead him away.
"Oh, you'll certainly want to meet with this family. One of the oldest of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and among the most powerful that you'll meet here today." Lord Delgado assured him, as he led the young man back over to Walburga and her son.
Sirius got a clear look at the young man's face and felt immediately chilled for no reason. There was nothing wrong with it, but it chilled him all the same.
"Lady Black," Lord Delgado presented the other wizard, front and center. "I'm pleased to introduce you to the director of the Department of Magical Education, Mr. Thomas Riddle."
-0-
Oh snap, it's Riddle-mort.
Hope none y'all expected to see him this soon. In something like 90% of the Marauder Year 1 fics I've read, there one thing I kept wondering about: Where's Voldemort? Voldemort started his campaign by 1970, but in those fics, he only really gets a passing mention because one of the characters is nerdy enough to read the newspaper or something. I kind of got the idea that a lot of writers didn't really have any comprehensive idea what Voldy was doing. To be fair, I did the same thing in the earliest drafts. When I started revising, I decided on two things. First: I wanted Voldemort to behave with more intelligence and cunning and to make him into the properly scary Dark Lord whose name everyone fears even eleven years after his defeat. I wanted to show how this guy basically brought Magic UK to its knees. Second: Once he displays that cunning and intelligence, who's to say that he can't find a position that lets him go above Dumbledore's head?
As you can see, I opted for a very different route when it comes to Sirius. Insta-Rebel Sirius Black and Sirius Black the White Sheep are some of those fanfic aspects that always bugged me. Realistically speaking, if Sirius spends his childhood surrounded by people who talk and think exactly like his parents and there's little to nothing that offers him a secondary viewpoint, he would still have these prejudices at least at surface level. Shedding prejudices like that takes time. He wonders about it sometimes and he definitely notices that some things don't match up to what his parents claim, but he's not up to the point of actually questioning it.
Socially-speaking, I went full-bore Victorian and then some on Wizard UK. A high-born Victorian child is to be seen and not heard. And sometimes not even seen. High-born Victorian children also rarely saw their parents and most of the raising was done by nurses and nannies. So here we have Sirius mostly raised by an extremely grumpy and ill-tempered nanny, and whenever he comes into contact with his parents, it's be to lectured on the merits of magical supremacy. If something doesn't meet his parents' strict approval, it simply never makes it down to Sirius's level.
A lot of Sirius's character development - especially in this first year - is about unlearning what his childhood has taught him and growing out of these stagnated views.
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