Chapter 7: S
He had found it.
Rather he had found them.
Two different topics that he had spent the better part of the year searching, he finally had some clarity about.
Neither of the two topics were what he had started off searching. They had evolved as he poured over tome after tome in the Black library.
It was an extensive library and he wasn't surprised that was the case. For a family that could trace its roots at least till to the Dark Ages, collection of so much information was not really surprising.
But what really surprised him was the topics that the books had contained.
A lot of it had made his stomach churn and had added new avenues for his nightmares to explore (which had not even remotely stopped but had only increased in intensity and creativity). But he had plodded through. His aim was clear. He was doing this for his godson, Harry, and he would pull through for him.
Failure was not an option.
Nor was leaving a single stone unturned.
And so he had read.
Book after book. Tome after tome.
Some in English. Those were the relatively easy ones to read, not content wise but language wise.
Some in old English. These were not entirely easy ones to read, but they could still be read and understood. And that was the key.
Some in Latin. Those were the worst. He knew only rudimentary Latin, having had that language drilled into him during childhood. The Blacks considered Latin to be superior to all languages and thus at the very least made sure that their children knew the basics of the language.
It terms of the contents of the books, none of the three was significantly darker than the other two.
Of course that only stated the relative differences in the darkness of the contents.
Not the absolute measure.
Compared to the books of today though, the works were much much darker. Sirius was sure that if any modern day person saw another reading the older works, then they were sure to be classified as dark.
He had found the books in Latin to be particularly informative, once he had managed to decipher the contents.
What had plagued him from the start of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts was how Voldemort had managed to to survive the supposed rebound of the Killing Curse.
It simply didn't make sense.
But then neither did the fact of someone surviving the Killing Curse make any sense.
He had questioned Dumbledore on it and had gotten an answer which he wasn't convinced with.
Dumbledore had simply told him that Voldemort had dabbled too much in the Dark Arts and had probably found a ritual that allowed him to survive. And that it was probably Lily's sacrifice that had saved young Harry.
The first part, Sirius agreed with, though he was put off Dumbledore for refusing to elaborate on the matter. It irritated him to no end that the Headmaster seemed to be very reluctant to give direct answers when forced to face tough questions. In many cases he would try to wriggle his way out of it while trying to placate the other party as much as possible.
Sirius had no doubts about where Dumbledore stood on the issue of light versus dark. Dumbledore was a champion for the light through and through. That much Sirius was dead certain. What he didn't know for certain was why the old Headmaster felt the need to keep so many secrets. He also wasn't sure if he had any ulterior motives, though his gut instinct (combined with what he had gotten from his Animagus form) pointed to the fact that he didn't have one.
But the keeping of secrets and the keeping of people in the dark was, to Sirius, and Sirius was sure Harry would agree, extremely annoying. It spoke of an attitude of not trusting one's team members.
Then again, Sirius had to admit, the last time round, before Harry had somehow managed to stop that lunatic, it was obvious that there was a leak.
This line of thought had led Sirius nowhere, as it seemed that he kept going around in circles.
So he did the only thing he could think of.
He decided to play the same game as Dumbledore.
He would trust Dumbledore with his life, but he wouldn't trust him with additional knowledge.
Coming back to the problem of Harry surviving the Killing Curse, he sensed that there must be some explanation. Contrary to popular belief, Sirius Black was not the most prodigious talent in school. That was the realm of two of his brothers in all but blood - James Potter and Remus Lupin. Sirius Black simply had the talent for grasping a concept relatively quickly, but he often needed to back that up with some amount of work.
And if there was to be an explanation, then Sirius Black would find that explanation. Like a dog that knows there is a bone hidden somewhere underneath and dig for it, he too would unearth the most probable and most plausible explanation for it.
It was at this point that he had come across another interesting book in the library. It was the Black family Grimoire, and as was expected of such books, it was heavily warded and could in fact only be seen by the Lord and Lady of the House. None of the others would even know about the book, including the child who was the Scion and heir-apparent of the House. Once the mantle of Lordship of the House had been passed to the heir, they would gain knowledge of it through the ancestral magic of the Black family. The one before would retain the knowledge of the Grimoire to pass on enough information so that the new Lord wouldn't have to start from scratch, before the previous Lord forgot it forever.
Of course in most situations, the Lord of the House remained the Lord of the House till the end of his days. However, some of the smarter ones added in their own notes into the first couple of pages of the Grimoire to serve as notes to be read by the inheritor on how to use the book. But that instruction too was limited.
The Grimoire turned out to be a fascinating piece of work. It was the only book in the entire library that could detect the language that the Lord of the House was most comfortable in and convert its contents to that language. This feature had surprisingly been added quite early on into the Grimoire and for which Sirius was immensely thankful.
The Grimoire was an interesting read as well. Not only did it chart the family tree, right from the time of the family's existence. Consequently it listed every single branch that had ever stemmed from the first Black family members.
Sirius spent a fair amount of time going over the genealogy of his family. He wasn't sure if it would still hold true, but he would be able to exert his influence on some of the more distant members of the Black family as well. He briefly wondered if this included Bellatrix and Narcissa as well. But then a note at the bottom of the page caught his eye and only served to increase his puzzlement as he read it.
The note itself was very simple, telling him that it would be possible, but the influence he would be able to exert would be minimal as the magic of the houses into which Bellatrix and Narcissa were married would exert their own influence as well and which would be a lot stronger than his.
He shuddered as he thought of what he had just seen. It was quite simply a way to control the entire House of Black and to quash any and all rebellion that arose from within. It was the kind of power he wished no one would have for one never knew when it would be abused.
But he was sorely tempted to use it on Bellatrix at least, not to prove a point or anything, but just to stop her from carrying out her madness. He knew that her time in Azkaban only further cemented her addled and twisted way of thinking and he was sure that if she weren't stopped, it would only lead to more untold and unspeakable disaster. As the Head of her maiden House he hoped he could do something about it, but it seemed like there was nothing he could do.
Even if he did try to influence her via Black magic (he chuckled to himself at his poor joke), she would feel nothing more than the sort of constant buzzing one hears when a fly or bee keeps flying around.
No, unfortunately, that avenue, to stop Bellatrix was closed.
He got back to looking through the family tree. He smirked as he imagined the reactions of many other families today if he told them they were related to the Blacks. But that smirk quickly turned into a grimace as he could immediately see that the same would also hold true for unsavoury houses that he did not want to be associated with. The Malfoys and the Lestranges were bad enough. He didn't need to know any more families, particularly those that were ardent supporters of Voldemort's cause. It would only make him wonder even longer how tha Black family had fallen from grace.
One name on the list caught his attention. He had never heard the person talk about it and as they were no more, he couldn't hope to hear and confirm about it either. It surprised him.
But then he was surprised that he was surprised.
He should have seen this coming a long time ago.
He was related to James! He was related by blood to the Potters!
It seemed that James' grandmother had been a Black who had stood up against the family and had married a Potter. The Potters and the Blacks were not strictly enemies. No two pureblood families could not openly be enemies. After all they were the minority and needed the support of each other. But it was rather well known that the minute one entered a room the other was present in, the temperature of the room would plummet and that was definitely not because either of them had performed a Glacius charm.
Sirius noted with interest that James' grandmother, Saiph Potter nee Black, had not been struck off the family tree, unlike Andromeda Tonks nee Black who had been cast out of the family for marrying a muggle-born. The only reason Sirius could think of and what he was sure was the reason was that the Potters were a pureblood family. And as Saiph had still married a pureblood, thereby preserving the status of the family, she was not thrown out. He highly doubted that she got any meaningful and well-intentioned gifts for her wedding from the Blacks.
Sirius tried to remember her, but he kept drawing a blank. He supposed that she had passed away before he had really gotten to know James and had started to hang around with him at his family home. But he was able to recall the stories that James told of her, of how he loved spending time with her and how she would always spoil him rotten.
It seemed that the first Black to team up with a Potter had had a gala time of it.
Something the second Black to team up with a Potter could easily picture and agree with.
Sirius continued going through the Grimoire. He was going about it rather quickly at the moment, though he planned to revisit the book as many times as needed in order to understand as much as he could from it.
Flipping through he saw a spell that was very pictorial and had been colour coded. Where the rest of the spells had been depicted in plain black or dark blue ink, this spell alone had been coloured in red which he supposed caused him to notice the spell in the first place.
Reading through it in detail brought only a frown to his place. It was a very strange spell to have and the conditions for it were exceedingly difficult to occur.
The spell filled him with a lot of apprehension. It was a disturbing piece of magic.
It was also perhaps the kind of spell that explained to Sirius why his last name was that.
For, the spell though written in red ink, was of the darkest black