Title: The Limits of Magic
Characters: Cassiopeia Black, Marius Black
Forum: QFLC—Round 6 (Beater 2, Ballycastle Bats)
Prompt: (inspiration) Frankenstein
Opt-Prompts: (word limit) 1833, (object) mirror
Forum: HPFC
Challenge: FRIENDS Challenge
Prompt: Write about any member of the Black family (9.16)
World: Pre-Hogwarts
Word Count: 1,260
A/N: When I teach 'Frankenstein,' it's usually in a post-humanist context: how we constitute personhood—how do we delineate between life that is worthwhile and life that is not? Who is worthy of life, of being treated morally and ethically? I think these questions are what make 'Frankenstein' a lasting text that offers something to even contemporary audiences.
Also, s/o to Cheeky Slytherin Lass, whose 'Cooking Lessons' reminded me of the oft-overlooked Marius.
…
The soul is a tenuous concept: it can be split, as with a Horcrux; it can be separated from a living body, as with a Dementor's kiss; it can live on after the death of a body, as with a ghost; the soul can 'move on' with the body at death. However, Thomas Aquinas, the great magical theorist of the 13th century, argued that souls are immortal and, like the magic that flows in us, exist in various states of nature […]
Theoretically, then, it is only our limited knowledge of magic that prevents us from breaching the line between what we conceive of as life and death and existing in a world beyond such binary thinking. Not only could it be possible to evade death as we know it completely, but we could access those whose souls have moved beyond the veil, as it were. For instance, if Conjuration allows us to bring forth an inanimate object from nothing, does it not stand to reason that magic would allow us to bring forth an animate one?
The recent adoption of 'Gamp's Law' as unassailable proves to be a hindrance to further exploration of this area of magical theory.
-The Limits of Magick
Godelot, trans. Eduardus Limette Black
...
Cassopeia licked her lips and grinned as she read. A new project.
The Black beauty prided herself on her knowledge and mastery of magic. She'd experimented with the furthest limits of known practice; she'd never made an actual Horcrux, but she'd been inspired by 'The Warlock's Hairy Heart' and now had her own beating vessel hidden away in a Goblin-wrought container under a Fidelus.
It had been her initial study of the Fidelus, in fact, that had inspired her to learn about soul magics in the first place.
Not even her family knew the depth of her work in magical theory. Sure, Cassiopeia was a renown Potions Mistress; her academic accomplishments allowed her parents to save face in light of her unmarried state. But men had never called to her the way magic did; she made sure the rumor mill knew of her tryst with Virginia Burke, and most of the marriage offers disappeared. Those who were not dissuaded by her disdain for men quickly found themselves enamored with less-than-desirable wives. After all, Cassiopeia was both a Potions Mistress and a Slytherin, and Amortentia was nothing more than a Sixth Year Hogwarts project.
No, the Black family assumed Cassiopeia spent her days in her laboratory perfecting her Potions work. They asked no questions when she wandered up to the Library, assuming the books she was pulling were about potions.
She was thankful no one ever looked at the titles. Soul Magicks, The Necrotic Arts, and Theoryes of Dark Magick would have made even Pollux raise an eyebrow. But now that Godelot had offered the possibility of conjuring an anima—of calling forth the immortal soul—Cassiopeia could not let it go.
Even if she could never share her accomplishments with the world, Cassiopeia would always know that she had pushed magic as far as it would go, and then reached beyond. With magic, anything was possible—nothing was out of her grasp, not even what lay beyond the veil.
...
It took almost a decade of research, runic work, spell crafting, and practice. She had long since left Grimmauld for a secluded cottage that she had warded to a questionably-legal extent; she had effectively estranged herself from her remaining family—mainly Pollux and his atrocious family, but also sweet little Dorea and her genial husband Charlus. Dorea had owled her on numerous occasions for recommendations regarding fertility draughts, but Cassiopeia had more important things on her mind.
And now, she was ready.
She stared in the full-length mirror in front of her, the borders etched with thousands of tiny, precise runes. The reflection offered her that which both was and was not: not reality itself, but an echo of the world around her. Such a bridge between existence and non-existence was necessary for the soul's journey from beyond.
She had the dead body of a Muggle next to her, should the soul she summoned choose to inhabit it. Marius's body was long buried and likely rotted by time and worms, but the Muggle child she'd found had his kind face and the Black grey eyes.
He had no magic, but neither had Marius; Cassiopeia shuddered at the memory of her younger brother on his eleventh birthday, when no owl appeared with his Hogwarts letter. He had silently cried at breakfast, and then resolutely followed their father to the basement.
To the wider wizarding world, Marius Black had died from a quick battle with Dragon Pox, but Cassiopeia had stood at the door and heard the Avada herself.
The Black family would not allow their shame to continue on, even in the Muggle world. Toujours Pur. Pure in blood, pure in magic.
Thou shall not suffer a Squib to live.
But Cassiopeia knew better. Something had shifted in her the day Marius was killed, and her studies as an adult had confirmed it. All the pure-blood posturing about bloodlines and the purity of craft…
It was all bullshit.
Had Marius lived, he might have eventually fathered a magical child. But Cygnus had been too short-sighted—to embarrassed—to show compassion or basic human decency to his son.
Cassiopeia would rectify that mistake.
"Siest Animaea Marius Black," she hissed at the mirror subtly moving her wand in a series of complicated and precise gestures.
She stared in the mirror and waited. And waited.
And slowly, a form materialized. A young boy, dark haired and sweet faced. A young boy, with tearful grey eyes.
"Cassie?" she saw him mouth, for she could not hear his voice on this side of the mirror.
Cassiopeia smiled. "Marius." She held out her hands, and the figure tentatively walked toward her. Her breath caught when two small hands passed through her own.
Marius stepped through the mirror tentatively. "Am I dead?"
Cassiopeia shrugged. "In a way. Right now, the closest word would be ghost. But you don't have to be." She gestured to the child's body nearby, under a stasis-spell to prevent decay of the organs. "I know the spell to put you right again, Marius."
The child nodded. "Who was he?"
Cassiopeia shrugged. "Some Muggle boy."
Marius thought for a moment, still looking at the boy. "Will I still be me?"
The witch gestured Marius over to the body and knelt beside it. "You will be as you as you are now. You will look slightly different. Think of it as permanent Polyjuice."
"But I still won't have magic," Marius said.
"You'll be alive," Cassiopeia countered.
"Would you want to be alive without magic?" Marius asked. When he looked at his sister, she found no hatred or disdain in his eyes. It was the question of a child: honest and forthright. And, given that said child had been murdered by his father for not being magical, absolutely reasonable.
But if Cassiopeia could destroy the veil—could bring back people from the dead, could make the immortal soul once again walk the mortal plane—then what couldn't she do?
"Come back, Marius," said said, smiling at her brother. "Come back to me, and I will find a way to make you magical."
"But Cassie," Marius frowned. "That's not possible."
She laughed. It was sweet, honest, and slightly maniacal. "That hasn't stopped me yet. Come, let me begin; we have research to do."