Chapter One: the Gate of the Sky
Sirius' scream tore through the serenity of the night sky. A roiling mass of anger, hate, pain, and sadness. All the abuse he had lived through, he shouted it out into the Aether above. Praying to the pin-pricks of light that his family took their names from, for some kind of relief.
The stars shone down on him, their cool gaze flickering in the void, but the relief he cried out for, did not come…
The tears had not stopped flowing since he was chained in place by his mother in order to carve the words 'blood traitor' into his flesh, the cursed blade would never allow the words to be removed from his breast. Walberga Black had disowned her son, burned his place on the family tree, and banished him from the Black family. Sirius had been thrown out onto the street, bleeding from the fresh wounds, with nothing but the clothes on his back and his wand.
What had he done to deserve this? What evil had he committed to rouse such hatred in the woman who had brought him into this world? His father had watched in silence as his mother cackled in glee as she flayed his skin and burned his visage. His brother stood quietly, stone faced, as he was scarred and cast out from his family.
The injustice! The pain…
"You are a Black!", The phrase has been said time and time again, since birth. You are better than all others! You are pure, strong, and righteous! No other family has the pedigree, the wealth, and the power that our, oh so sacred, of houses possesses. You are divinely blessed with magic, power, beauty, wealth.
wrong. Wrong. WRONG!
He was no different from any other! His heart beat the same red blood as everyone else; pureblood, half-blood, muggle born, squib, or even muggle! Yet still, his mother cast him out, renounced their relation, and struck down all hope of familial love. The love of family clashed with the righteousness of belief, and love was found wanting.
Sobs wracked his body, apparently it was true; Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. James, Remus, and Peter would never betray him the way his family had…
Why he had returned to these ancient woods still eluded him, even after hours of mourning, crying through the night. He should be with the Potters, the only family that did not scorn him. His Grand Aunt Dorea and his Grand Uncle Charlus had always treated him as a son, not to mention his cousin once removed and all but brother James. Yet he was drawn to the ancient seat of the Blacks.
The castle Black was younger than Hogwarts by a few centuries, but the forest behind it was truly ancient. It was unknown how long the trees had been there, the Coille-Sgàile, or the shadowed wood. Many claimed it was home to one of the fae courts of old or was the stomping grounds of the Wild Hunt. Any and all things could lurk within one of the oldest forests of the Isles. This was where the first man to take up the name of Black had lived, the land he had conquered with wand and sword. This is where his ancestor made his claim as the Lord of Black: 'Dominus umbrarum sum, dominus silvae nigrae sum', or I am the Lord of Shadows, I am the Lord of the Black Forest.
It was the place he had always run to as a child, the deep shadows under the ancient trees at his Grandfather's estate were a refuge from the abuse of his family. He wondered if his grandparents even cared. Never had they come to him, when he had ventured into the shadows beneath the trees, despite their proximity. He had endured many years under the wrath of his mother, yet never had they intervened…
Sirius' sobbing started to quiet. The tears finally began to dry, his body weak from the anguish of his sorrow, the turmoil in his soul began to still. He gave a pained grin, apparently he had needed a good cry. Everyone needed it from time to time, even men such as himself!
His thoughts drifted to recent events…
Rape, torture, murder, fear! The so-called "Dark Lord Voldemort", if that wasn't a made up title he would slit his own throat, had ramped up his acts of terror in recent months. No one was safe, from the oldest of pureblood houses, to the lowliest of muggles, death followed in the wake of his masked followers.
The world was going to shit and his family was cheering as they watched it burn…
He knew that his family's legacy had been built on an alter of blood, conquest, and war. Yet he was disgusted by the actions of this terrorist group! Their goals made no sense, purebloods could claim near complete control of their society! This had begun to change under Dumbledore's more socialist agenda and the many more muggle borns joining their society than purebloods being born, but hardly were purebloods being driven out of magical Britain!
So much new magical blood should be celebrated, a new dawn of magical innovation, a resurgence of magic on earth! Yet his family and their like held tightly to the power they felt was their right by blood, and so they followed the Dark Lord into madness. This war was no revolution or crusade for a higher calling, this was a culling, a power grab by a madman. An insane plot to re-establish magical rulership over the isles and probably rule the world. Sirius snorted, Dark Lords were all the same.
He shook his head banishing those depressing thoughts, it was time to head to the Potter's. They would give him the love and care he had always craved but never received from his family. He stood wearily, noticing only now that he had wandered into a place he had never been before. That in itself was surprising after spending many a summer and most of his childhood wandering the shade cast by the ancient canopy.
He looked around the ancient glade he had found himself in. Oak, Yew, Cedar, Willow, Ash, Elder, Hawthorn… Sirius had never seen such a strange assortment of trees, they had obviously been purposefully placed there. Honestly… What the fuck? Was this place a ritual circle of some kind? His family was dark indeed.
He patted the mighty oak that had watched him shed his many tears. It seems he was not the only thing neglected by his family. This place of power felt overgrown, a precise garden left to the whims of nature. His blood, smeared across his hand from putting pressure on his wound, seemed to flake off his hand and settle into the creases of the treebark. With a great 'Crack!', a ripple of red magic spread from his blood, bathing the grove in a flash of Red Light. Each tree stuck by the wave of magic lighting up, the creases in the bark of the ancient sentinels momentarily glowing in response. The wave of blood magic faded, each tree slowly dimming and the grove once again returned to shadow.
The fuck was that!?! Blood magic? I mean it reacted to his blood, so it must be! Shit. FUCK! He should get out of here! This could get extremely dangerous very fast if he was not careful. Sirius turned to leave the grove but stopped on the edge of the clearing…
Were those… runes? Bloody hell, his curiosity was going to get him killed. But fuck it! He was a Black! Sirius was trained since birth to not get himself killed in the death trap his parents called a home. If the runes were dangerous, he'd tell grandfather and the Lord of the forest could sort whatever this is out.
A closer look at the bark of each of these ancient sentinels where he saw the fading light, revealed runes. The trees were so old that the bark itself had formed over the carvings, but he could make out some of it. He could feel the magic flowing through each of the trees. It called to him. The magic sang in harmony with his own. It was activated by his blood… Did the black family dabble in Druid magics in the ancient past? Probably not… but then why did it react to him, the heir of Black? The magic within the now active rune scheme felt dark. As black as a shadow but comforting, mournful yet pure in its purpose, it was ancient, it was strong. It was home.
Sirius wished he could do more than identify that there were runes cut into the flesh of these trees, and that the magic harmonized and recognized his own magic as kin. He wanted to unravel the mystery of this place, but he had always been better with Greek or Latin runic languages, it was where his family came from after all. He had little knowledge of Ancient runes used by the druids of the isles aside from being able to identify them. This very well may be one of the storied Druid groves of old, from the time before even the founding of Avalon.
He was surprised that his family had not burned it down; they'd done so, many, many times during the Roman invasion of the British Isles. The destruction of the Druidic groves was done in order to weaken all of Brittania, to weaken the ancient magic imbued into the isles by the druids and mythological Fae Courts.
Magical conquest was far more complicated than it's non-magical equivalent. Magic would fight to retain its form. To subjugate a magical civilization you had to completely destroy it or to make the magic your own.
It was one of the major reasons the Romans always integrated their soldiers into the places they conquered. They married into the magical blood of the land, their children inheriting what powers they could not erase or take by force.
Of course, this was only true for those bloodlines that survived the many years of war waged by the never ending legions of Rome. Many powerful Druidic clans had been culled by the greed and avarice of the Roman emperors. Legends say that even the Fae Courts, forever at war with one another, had been weakened to the point where they had fled the material plane finding refuge in hidden Demi-planes, forever barred from the Isles which they once called home.
Few records exist of the ancient past and Sirius only knew the stories because of his ancestry. The subjugation of the Isles was a harrowing tale, and most likely heavily embellished to make the house of Black all the more illustrious. The arrogance of the house of Black knew no bounds, but as storied as their history was they might deserve to be.
The House of Black is only one of two of the ancient conquering Roman houses left in Britain, Ollivander being the other. Roman Wand Smiths who had been the main army suppliers during the conquest. The family had stayed on the isles after they had won the conquest for their emperor, seeing the abundance of ancient forests and wand core materials to further delve into their craft. All other houses of such prestige had since fallen, and disappeared in the annals of history.
Of course the few clans of the isles that survived the invasion had also since fallen or been absorbed by newer houses. The proud clan of Pendragon survived the wars and bent the knee, swearing vassalage to the Emperor, but later fell with the Kingdom of Avalon a few centuries later. The reclusive clan of Peverell died off after their forging of the Deathly Hallows, Antioch boasting to William the Conqueror about his "unbeatable wand" sparked the Norman invasion in the arrogant man's bid to claim all three of the "Hallows". Granted, he also had a family claim to the throne, but he was certainly not of the Isles.
The now eldest houses that now ruled magical Britain; Notts, Selwyns, MacMillans, and a few others of the so-called "Sacred Twenty-Eight" were but servants, swordbearers, or hedge wizards under the great clans at the time of the Roman Invasion. Over time those ancient nobles were eventually absorbed by marriage by the lesser ilk.
The few other families of such ancient heritage had immigrated. For example the ancient house of Longbottom, claimed to descend from an Asgaurdian warrior who had begotten a shield maiden with child in ancient times. They settled in the isles, after raiding it for centuries, only in order to fight against the Normans who were "infringing on their turf". Battle hungry madmen, the lot of them. He would know, Frank had put him on his ass more times than he could count. A kind man, that Francis Longbottom or Frank to his friends. After beating on you like some muggle sandbag, he would smile, pick you up from the floor, and carry you to the infirmary all while saying how much you had improved and how proud he was of you for working so hard. He had graduated this year, Sirius expected he would go far. Longbottom would blaze a trail through the Auror corps as he always had done, wand in hand and a battle hungry glint in his eye.
Sirius shook his head pushing the histories and legends he was forced to learn since he was a child from his head. Through every war in the history of the isles, his family had picked the winning side, and used any and every tactic to make it happen. The Blacks, known at the time as the house of Umbra, supported Mordred in his rebellion against his father King Arthur. Love potions for Lancelot and the Queen, dirty politic breaking up the bonds of the round table, the breaking of oaths to king (House of Black Rule no. 5: oaths of the word mean nothing to a Black, only oaths of magic can ever bind us!), backstabbing and betrayal. Avalon fell, the Lords left alive came into power over the fallen Pendragon Kingdom, crafting their own petty kingdoms from the shattered whole.
The Umbra clan, now a universally cursed name, were often called blackhearts by both magical and non-magical populations. The clan was so well known for its treachery it changed its name and embraced the hate and fear caused by their role in the death of the beloved King Arthur, cementing their legend forevermore. The house adopted the Anglo-Saxon term for the color they had been decried as, Blaec. Centuries passed and the Peverells, the last of the great houses of the ancient isles stepped out of line, they had proclaimed themselves the greatest house of the isles with their latest creations, the Deathly Hallows.
The Blaec's saw yet another opportunity. They supported William the Conqueror in his quest to destroy all the house of Peverell and to bring the isles under his banner. House Blaec was rewarded for turning on their own countrymen, a place in court and many of the conquered lands of the Peverells, not to mention the noble title of Duke under the new regime.
Even now in this so-called Blood War, the Blacks had chosen the winning side. Voldemort was gaining ground and at the moment it seemed that nothing could stop the madman. Not even the vaunted defeater of Grindlewald, Dumbledore.
He felt himself shudder. He was a Black, descended from one of the Roman conquerors of old, descended from betrayers and blackhearts. He hated it. He hated the blood his name was steeped in. He hated the monument to death his family had built to honor their bloody origins. He hated the fortune forged from backstabbing and dirty politics.
Yet it was who he was. Blood, death, and war all called out to him. It was why he clung so tightly to his brothers of choice and oath, for they had given him a chance despite the shades of history and dark magic that clung to him like a well fitted cloak.
He slowly paced round the Druidic circle of trees, the puzzling ancient magic gave him something to distract him from his problems. He reached out with his own magic, something that just was not practiced anymore. Wands had been around for so long and had been so pervasive that magic was seen as almost impossible without them.
This was untrue, using magic without a focus just required years of practice and a lot of willpower, belief bordering on fanaticism. The belief in the idea that your mere thought would impart a change in reality. Or at least that is what he remembered his grandfather telling him many years ago. Yet despite knowing this, moving magic out of his body and into the world without his wand in this place felt natural, as if this forgotten grove was teaching him the forgotten ancient ways of magic.
Never had he felt so in tune with his own magical core. As he clumsily searched around him with his grasping tendrils of magic, he got a feel for the intent of what had been imbued into the trees. Using a wand here felt wrong. Now that he thought about it, wands were a Roman invention. They were a precision magical foci, the tool the Romans built an empire with. The use of wands at this point was global, aside from some of the more secluded magical communities anyways.
He frowned, the magic of this glade was that of powerful protections, concealment, and a promise of return. It all revolved around the large stone at the center of the grove, a veritable wellspring of pure magic. He had never felt such a powerful confluence of magic aside from his years at Hogwarts!
Covered in moss and overgrown with clinging ivy, the massive stone stood monolithic, ancient, and practically thrumming with the amount of pure magic It contained. He was uneasy, so very curious, but unsettled nonetheless.
Many stories of wizards or witches finding ancient ruins usually ended horribly; imprisoned ancient horrors, mad necromancers, curses galore…
Fuck. He might be a Gryffindor but he wasn't stupid…
One step closer, led to a second, and third, until he stopped just before the large stone that stood twice his height. He had thought it small when compared to the ancient trees of the grove, which was true, he just had not fully comprehended how truly massive the ancient trees really were.
He brushed off some of the moss on the edge of the largest face of the stone. More of the mysterious Druidic runes created a ring around a perfectly flat stone face, it was polished to a mirror shine. He pushed the Ivy out of the way, holding it back from its resting place.
The reflection of his hand in the runic mirror was hazy, almost as if it was bathed in shadow. He brought his face into view; a handsome noble visage despite dried tears and puffy eyes. Black, shoulder length hair with princely curls seemed darkened even further by the shadows. Eyes that he knew to be gray, looked to be gleaming silver, the only light within the darkened portrait of his reflection.
He gave himself his usual roguish smile. It did not meet his eyes. He looked down, away from his lying face and truthful eyes. He sighed, as interesting as this place was, it did not solve his problems or mend his brokenness.
He looked back into the mirror once more before he turned to leave. Such a strange thing to be hidden and protected, he would have to return one day and fully puzzle out this mystery. He would have to brush up on his ancient runework. Who knows, this could be an undiscovered runic language!
Sirius brightened slightly at the thought and his reflection smiled at him, something more feral and cruel than mirthful. It was almost unnatural in the way the skin stretched and teeth bared in a rictus grin. Wait a second…
His reflection was smiling at him!?!
The shadow being within the runic mirror swiftly reached out and grasped his throat. It's fingernails elongated to claws, it's grin sharp and animalistic. It quickly pulled the startled Black into the gateway. The Ivy swung down, once again concealing the mirror-like surface of the stone. The runes shimmered with arcs of magic.
The Gate of the Skye had once again been opened.
Hello, I hope you enjoyed. Couple things to keep in mind; I like history but because this is fiction I'm gonna butcher it, please don't hold it against me. I enjoy alternate historical fiction, and I thought I'd give it a shot mixing mythology, history and fiction. Rowling created a wonderful world but left much to be filled in history wise. This is just something I thought would be interesting and really better illustrate why purebloods hold so much power in the HP world. Most of my translations are just via google, don't flay me for my poor attempts at Latin please! I'll probably post once a month or so, I'm a terribly slow writer.