Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Thank you, J. K. Rowling, for creating a wonderful world where our imagination can play.
The Life and Misadventures of Liam Arcturus Black Vol. 1
Chapter 2: A Consolidated History of the Most Ancient and Revered House of Le Fay Part 1
My Father, Prince Liam, always reminded me that mainstream history has not been accurate to our families especially the longer that they have existed.
The Blacks stretch back to the reign of the pharaoh Narmer in 3100 BCE and have had periods of light, smatterings of extreme darkness but are usually grey.
The Greengrasses can trace their written history back 300 CE in the highlands of Scotland. Their surname related to their crops being greener than their neighbors due to the infusion of their magic into their lands. They have typically been light grey merchants trying to stay neutral and making a fair profit.
The Delacours trace their history back to Roman Gaul around 50 BCE. They have owned huge vineyards and were involved in agriculture. Starting in 1250 CE, Nicolas Delacour joined the first Parlement of Paris, and they have been active in French politics ever since. Typically a grey family but have been characterized as "dark" because they don't mind marrying nonhuman magicals because the heart wants what the heart wants.
The Ravenclaws stretch back to the time Rowena Ravenclaw had to flee from the magical purges of Camelot in 940 CE. Ravenclaw is primarily a light family that had dabbled in the grey when war and aggression threatened the tranquility that they desired.
Lastly, the Le Fay family and especially Great-Grandmother Morgana and her descendants are the most misconstrued. She is known now as a seductress, an assassin, an evil queen, a manipulator, and the darkest of sorceresses. That imagined woman was a fabrication of propaganda used for the control of half of the population in the Middle Ages and more recently by Albus Dumbledore to attempt to ban and marginalize the acceptance of certain types of magic. She was also held up as justification for dark witches like Aunt Bellatrix.
The truth is less simple:
More than a thousand years ago, a gifted young woman aspired to be nothing more than to become the most successful healer in her father's and later her younger brother's kingdoms. During a time of high infant and mother mortality, short life expectancy, plagues, and constant wars there was more than a little niche for her flourish.
King Uther banned magic throughout his kingdom, as such Morgana was ignorant of her magical gifts in herbology and medicinal potion creation. Through her first 15 years of practice and obsessive dedication to her art, Uther's Kingdom rivaled the modern developing nations health standards. Life expectancy was ten years longer than any other kingdom in the Isles. Her students pushed the boundaries of healing to enhance the quality of life. She was most proud of her protégé Rowena, age 12, that would probably rival her when she was an adult.
Morgana realized that she was magical as her potions were more potent than others. The only difference during brewing is that she pushed empathy into her work to better heal her patients. She recognized keeping her magic secret and protecting her inventions a family secret protected by simple magical oaths was a substantial tactical advantage for Camelot.
At age 26, she became distressed by the persecution of the Druidic pacifists that came under the control of the expanding kingdom. Additionally, Uther was pressured by an ally to betroth Morgana to his son, Philip, that wanted a plaything added to his harem. As she contemplated her similarities to Hypatia of Alexandria and that her Uncle could be so short-sighted with his fear of magic, she worried about her fate and the fate of those like her.
She begged Arthur and Merlin to intercede on her behalf. The second to last breaking point in her life was the week before her wedding when she witnessed her father and many of his troops attacking a Druid town while the men were away. The burning of children and babies and the unmentionable things done to the girls and women haunted her for the rest of her life. Had Morgana known any offensive magic at the time none of those men would have lived to see the next sunrise. She planned to run away before her wedding day but Arthur discovered her plans and for the greater good Uther placed her under house arrest until her wedding day.
Arthur's cost-benefit analysis was flawed by personal bias, his limited perspective, and his naivety to the moral failings of his father and his troops not to mention that he couldn't fathom that any man would do what Philip had planned for Morgana. It seemed like the momentary happiness of one girl weighed against the forged peace between two kingdoms was the bargain of the century. He failed to recognize the outstanding health the kingdom enjoyed and that he was making his greatest adversary out of someone that had loved him more than his parents and was more devoted to him than Queen Guinevere would ever demonstrate.
Before the wedding, Philip bragged to her that he planned to take her back to his castle where he would break her until she was nothing more than his wanton whore. Again she begged and pleaded with Merlin; she offered Merlin anything he could desire to save her from that fate. He took advantage of her desperation and in turn impregnating her with the first Lord Le Fay. Unknowingly, he agreed to and created a magical vow sealed with virgin blood magic that would eventually cost him his life many decades later when his magic failed to protect him from his son. Merlin later lamented that this was one of his greatest regrets and moral failings when he did nothing to help her and abused her trust.
The morning of the wedding she found herself tied to her bed with Prince Philip preparing a prenuptial test drive. King Uther was in the room behind the bed curtains permitting the violation of his daughter. As she pleaded for help and screamed for them to not do that to her, the bed and walls started to rumble. At that extreme moment, her magic lashed out and banished all of the men at high velocity into the stone walls. Magical flames burned through the ropes that held her down. According to reports from the survivors, she floated off the bed, and smoke coalesced around her into the blackest of robes. As her eyes turned an unearthly fiery crimson and her auburn hair wiped behind her with rage, she threw a fireball that engulfed the unconscious Prince Philip in hellfire. Lastly, she threw a crude, slow acting withering curse at her father's loins as punishment for the women that he had defiled and for permitting this to almost happen to her. A loud clap like thunder occurred in the room and she disappeared. That was the last that Camelot heard from her for the next 20 years.