The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black (OP)
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The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is the sixth chapter of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Contents |
The Weapon
Molly Weasley follows the children upstairs, sending them all to bed. She reminds Hermione not to wake Ginny up; Fred mutters his disbelief that his baby sister will be asleep ("If Ginny's not lying awake waiting for Hermione to tell her everything they said downstairs then I'm a Flobberworm...").
Ron and Harry enter their gloomy room. Harry notices that the blank picture on the wall is now breathing slowly and deeply. Ron throws Owl Treats on top of the closet to pacify the restless Hedwig and Pigwidgeon. Dumbledore doesn't let the owls go out hunting at night, for fear that it'll look suspicious.
Ron bolts the door, explaining that Kreacher wandered in at three in the morning on his first night at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.
The boys then discuss the information they have just received. Ron points out that most of it wasn't news; the kids had heard almost all of it already via the twins' Extendable Ears. The two troublemakers Apparate with a loud crack at that exact point, and join the discussion, mentioning the single most interesting and novel piece of intelligence they'd come across that evening: this so-called weapon.
The four wizards begin to theorise what it could be: what could be worse than Avada Kedavra, or more efficient than Cruciatus? Where could it be? Hogwarts, perhaps, hidden by Dumbledore in a similar way to the Philosopher's Stone? (Size is no guarantee of power, as George points out; Ginny's infamous Bat Bogey Hexes are proof of that.)
Suddenly, they hear Mrs. Weasley approaching. Fred and George Disapparate before their mother starts listening by the door to check whether Ron and Harry are asleep. She then goes on to the next floor to check on the twins.
Harry drifts off to sleep, dreaming of weapons and Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lesson.
The Doxy party
George wakes Harry and Ron up, announcing that Molly needs them in the drawing room (a long, high-ceilinged room with olive green walls and buzzing green velvet curtains); she's found more Doxys and a nest of dead Puffskeins.
The children and Molly cover their faces with tea towels before spraying the curtains with Doxycide (a black liquid). It's the worst infestation she has ever seen, and she criticises Kreacher for not controlling it. When Hermione starts defending the house-elf by pointing out his age, she is interrupted by Sirius, who enters the room carrying a bag of what seems to be dead rats, noting that the elf is capable of plenty when he wants to.
He explains to Harry that he's just fed Buckbeak, who is being kept in Walburga Black's old bedroom. Sirius then turns to examine a locked cabinet that has been shaking slightly; he's pretty sure that a Boggart is hiding inside it, but suggest that they ask Moody to take a look before unlocking it. Both his tone and Molly's are carefully polite, letting on that they haven't forgotten the previous night's disagreement.
A visitor rings the bell, causing the portrait of Sirius' mother to start yelling again ("Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth..."); he runs out to silence her and open the door. Harry takes as long as he can to carry out Molly's command to close the door, trying to listen to what the newcomer is saying: it's Kingsley Shacklebolt, who tells Sirius that Hestia Jones has just relieved him from guard duty; she has Moody's Invisibility Cloak.
According to Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, Doxys bite and their teeth are poisonous (Molly has a bottle of antidote, but she would prefer not to use it). Doxys also have shiny beetle-like wings and sharp teeth. Their fairy-like bodies are covered with thick black hair and they have four hands. One good squirt of Doxycide spray paralyses them. The children are supposed to spray them and throw them in a bucket.
Fred pockets a stunned Doxy for experimentation purposes: he and George are developing Skiving Snackboxes, double-ended, colour-coded sweets that make one just ill enough to cut class. The orange half of Puking Pastilles, for instance, make the student throw up; the purple health restores him or her to full fitness. There are other varieties of Snackboxes, such as the Nosebleed Nougat and the Fainting Fancies. The twins test them on themselves.
They're running the joke shop via mail-order, thanks to Harry, and placed advertisements in the Daily Prophet the previous week (Molly doesn't read it anymore, thanks to the discrediting campaign against Dumbledore and Harry).
They spend the rest of the morning de-Doxying. A little after midday, the curtains are damp and Doxy-free, and there are piles of the creatures in a bucket below, as well as a bowl full of their black eggs, at which Crookshanks starts sniffling. Molly announces that they will work on the glass-fronted cabinets on either side of the mantelpiece after lunch.
The doorbell rings, Mrs. Black's portrait starts yelling, and Molly orders all the children not to go downstairs; she will bring lunch up to where they are. The newcomer is Mundungus Fletcher, bringing several cauldrons with him—the dodgy ones he picked up on the night Harry was attacked (OP1).
Mundungus starts debating with Sirius and Kingsley; the boys consider using Extendable Ears for a while, until Molly's screaming renders such devices unnecessary: "WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!" she bellows, and goes on in a similar fashion for a while.
Kreacher
George tries to shut the door in order to keep out the sounds, but a house-elf sneaks inside: he is naked except for the rag tied like a loincloth around his middle. Kreacher is bald, but white hair grows from his huge ears; his eyes are bloodshot, and his nose is large and snout-like. He walks as a hunchback would, slowly and doggedly, all the while muttering under his breath:
"...smells like a drain and a criminal to boot, but she's no better, nasty old blood traitor with her brats messing up my mistress' house, oh, my poor mistress, if she knew, if she knew the scum they've let into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher, oh, the shame of it, Mudbloods and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do..."
Fred greets him loudly, and Kreacher feigns surprise, pretending he hadn't seen the Weasley. He then bows and mutters in a clear undertone, "Nasty little brat of a blood traitor it is."
Kreacher says similar insults to George and Hermione. The girl tries to be friendly and introduces Harry to the elf; he is horrified by both Hermione's daring to talk to him, "Mudblood" that she is (Ron and Ginny immediately and angrily protest the insult), and by Harry's presence ("Is it true? Is it Harry Potter? Kreacher can see the scar, it must be true, that's the boy who stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it —").
George then asks Kreacher what he wants. Kreacher claims to be cleaning; Sirius arrives and voices his disbelief, and the elf bows. Sirius demands to know what he had been doing. "Kreacher is cleaning," he repeats. "Kreacher likes to serve the Noble House of Black."
Kreacher goes on to insult Sirius under his breath ("Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart"), to which Sirius replies that Walburga had no heart; she kept herself alive out of pure spite. The elf obediently acquiesces, but continues his mutterings. When inquired once more as to what he's been doing, Kreacher mumbles about the seven-hundred-year-old tapestry he's trying to save from the blood traitors and brats.
Sirius points out that his mother in all likelihood cast a Permanent Sticking Charm on the tapestry, but affirms that, if he can, he will get rid of it. He orders Kreacher to leave; the elf cannot disobey a direct order, and stalks off.
When Hermione questions Sirius about the harsh treatment he gives Kreacher, he curtly tells her that he cannot free the elf, who knows too much about the Order of the Phoenix. Besides, Kreacher wouldn't want to leave number twelve.
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
The tapestry is ancient, and it looks as though Doxys have chewed on parts of it. It portrays a family tree, embroidered in gold, that goes back until the Middle Ages (as far as Harry can see). At the very top, it is written: "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black"; directly below that is the family motto: toujours pur, French for "always pure".
After examining the tree, Harry notes that Sirius is not on it. The Marauder confirms this, explaining that Walbuga blasted him off the tree when he ran away from home; Sirius was sixteen years old by then, and he'd had enough of his family's oddities—he hated them and their pure-blood mania. His younger brother Regulus, however, was soft enough to believe them (a much better son, in the Blacks' opinion), and eventually became a Death Eater.
He further shares that he went to James' place; the Potters received him very well and practically adopted him as a second son. Sirius got a place of his own when he turned seventeen, with money that he inherited from his uncle Alphard. Nevertheless, he was always welcomed at the Potters' for Sunday lunch.
Sirius says his parents thought Voldemort had the right idea; the thought of purification of the wizarding race pleased them, blood royalty that they were. When the Dark Lord showed his true colours, however, and revealed what he was willing to do to get power, the Blacks, along with several other families, backed off.
Regulus died about fifteen years ago (1979), murdered at the orders of Lord Voldemort. From what Sirius found out, Regulus got in too far, panicked about what he was being asked to do, and tried to back out.
The other children go have lunch, but Harry stays with Sirius, who examines the tapestry for the first time in years. He points to:
- His great-grandfather Phineas Nigellus Black, "least popular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had";
- Araminta Meliflua, his mother's cousin, who tried to force through a Ministry Bill to make Muggle-hunting legal;
- His aunt Elladora, who started the tradition of beheading house-elves when they got old;
- The burnt spot for his favourite cousin Andromeda (who married Ted Tonks, a Muggle-born) and her entirely absent daughter, Tonks—every half-decent Black in the family was disowned, in Sirius' opinion.
- Andromeda's sisters, Narcissa and Bellatrix, who made "respectable pure-blood marriages" (to Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange, respectively).
Harry is surprised to learn that Sirius is related to the Malfoys, but he dismissively says that the pure-blood options for a husband are limited: "There are hardly any of us left. Molly and I are cousins by marriage, and Arthur's something like my second cousin once removed. But there's no point looking for them on here — if ever a family was a bunch of blood traitors, it's the Weasleys."
Harry then stares at the surname 'Lestrange', trying to remember where he last heard it. Sirius brusquely says that Bellatrix, Rodolphus and the latter's brother, Rabastan, are all in Azkaban; they arrived with Barty Crouch, Jr.. Harry suddenly remembers: he saw their trial in Dumbledore's Pensieve (GF30).
Sirius rashly snaps that he hasn't seen Bellatrix since he was Harry's age, other than a glimpse of her arrival at Azkaban. Harry apologises confusedly, only to have his godfather miserably say that he hates being stuck in Number Twelve; he never expected to have to go there again. The boy empathises, wondering what it would be like to return to number four, Privet Drive a few years from now.
The place is, however, perfect for Order Headquarters; Orion Black put every security measure known to wizardkind in it (it is unplottable, for instance), and Dumbledore put in place the Fidelius Charm as well, with himself as Secret Keeper (no one can find the place unless he tells them personally).
Sirius wants to feel useful again; he's asked Dumbledore whether he can escort Harry to the hearing in his Animagus form, for moral support. Harry's stomach sinks; he hadn't thought about the hearing all day, but now the possibility of being expelled from school returns with full force. "If they do expel me," he asks, "can I come back here and live with you?" Sirius smiles sadly and says merely, "We'll see."
Magical objects
The two go have lunch as well, and Harry tries not to think about the hearing for the rest of the day, as he empties the glass-fronted cabinets. Luckily, it's a difficult job: many of the objects are reluctant to leave, among which the following.
- Before the children start working on the cabinets, Harry sees a selection of rusty daggers, claws, a coiled snakeskin, several silver boxes inscribed with languages he could not understand, and an ornate crystal bottle full of suspiciously blood-ish liquid with a large opal stone set into the stopper.
- A silver snuffbox bites Sirius, and within seconds the bitten hand develops a crusty covering similar to a brown glove. A tap of his wand returns it to normal; he ponders that there must be Wartcap powder in the box. When Sirius throws the box in the rubbish sack, George nicks it and puts it in his pocket for further examination.
- A tweezer-like silver instrument that crawls up Harry's arm when he picks it up, trying to puncture the boy's skin. Sirius smashes it with a heavy book entitled Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy.
- A musical box that emits a tinkling tune when wound, making everyone feel weak and drowsy until Ginny slams it shut;
- A heavy locket that no one could open;
- Several ancient seals;
- An Order of Merlin, First Class awarded to Arcturus, Sirius' grandfather, for "services to the Ministry" (Sirius says, "it means he gave them a lot of gold.").
Kreacher tries repeatedly to take things to his room, and curses horribly every time they catch him at it. When Sirius snatches a golden ring that belonged to Orion from the elf's grip, Kreacher calls him things Harry has never heard before.
"Kreacher wasn't quite as devoted to him as to my mother, but I still caught him snogging a pair of my father's old trousers last week."
The routine at number twelve
It takes the children three days to decontaminate the drawing room. The only undesirable items left there are the rattling desk and the tapestry of the Black family tree, which was stuck to the wall.
The dining room is next; in it, there are large spiders (which cause Ron to take a long tea break and not return for an hour and a half) and china bearing the Black family crest and motto. The china, along with old photographs and their silver frames, are smashed.
In Harry's opinion, they are waging war against the house, which is putting up an excellent fight and being helped by Kreacher. The elf tries to rescue anything he can from the rubbish sacks, and his mumblings grow louder and increasingly more offensive. When Sirius threatens to free him, Kreacher mutters that no such thing will happen, for he knows what the "Mudblood traitors" are planning.
The doorbell rings several times a day, causing the portrait of Walburga Black to start shrieking again and Harry and the others to attempt once more to eavesdrop on the visitor. Severus Snape is a frequent guest, but he never comes face to face with Harry; Minerva McGonagall, in a Muggle dress and coat, also shows up a few times.
Tonks joins them for one brief afternoon in which they find a murderous old ghoul lurking in a toilet upstairs. Remus stays in the house, but leaves for long periods of time for mysterious reasons; he helps the children fix a grandfather clock that shot heavy bolts at passers-by. Mundungus helps Ron free himself of a set of purple robes that had attempted to strangle the boy once they had been removed from the wardrobe.
Harry continues sleeping restlessly and dreaming of corridors and locked doors; he is happy despite that, however, as long as the house keeps him busy. When he lies awake idly or lets his guard down, thoughts of the upcoming Ministry hearing overcome him, and he becomes frightened and anxious.
One Wednesday evening, Molly turns to Harry and informs him that she's ironed his best clothes, and that he should wash his hair for the following day's events. Harry feels suddenly desolate, and a terribly still atmosphere is suddenly in place. All the kids seem uncomfortable and worried.
Arthur, Molly continues, is taking Harry to work with him in the morning. Dumbledore decided that it wasn't a good idea for Sirius to go with Harry, much to the boy's (and his godfather's) disappointment and annoyance.
When Arthur adds that Dumbledore had been to the house the previous night, Harry feels worse — if that is even possible. The Headmaster had been in the house on the eve of the hearing and hadn't even asked to see him.
Trivia
- Ron is still scared of using Voldemort's name, unlike Sirius and Remus.
- Hermione's obsession with elf rights makes her constantly annoyed at Sirius, Molly and the others for mistreating Kreacher.
- Kreacher is supposed to take orders from any Black; he doesn't from Tonks because she was disowned.
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