Harry Potter & The Black Sacrifice
Post 20: The Baron's Confession
Chapter 18
The Baron's Confession
When Harry and Remus arrived back at Harry's home, it was almost dark. Harry had barely had a chance to draw in a breath when Hermione came barreling towards him from the front door, her eyes wild with excitement.
"Harry!" she shrieked. "Remus! Inside, quickly! You've got to see this!"
Harry and Remus exchanged weary but amused glances, and followed her inside.
She led them in to the dining room, where she proceeded to shove the Daily Prophet into their faces. "Read it! First article!!" she shouted triumphantly.
Remus grabbed it first. "Artifact stolen from Department of Mysteries…" he muttered. He kept reading, and after a moment his eyes widened. He looked over to Hermione, who had a very smug smile on her face.
"The proof the Baron will want…" said Remus, and Hermione noddaed enthusiastically.
"What are you two babbling about?" asked Harry, and he grabbed the paper from Remus' hands. He began to read out loud. "Ministry officials are reporting that in the early hours of Monday morning, thieves broke in to the Department of Mysteries, and stole only a single item. The item in question, commonly known as Arcturus' Gate, was being used by the Unspeakables in their ongoing study of death." Harry raised one eyebrow, and kept reading.
"When asked for comment, Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour would only say that recovering the Gate was not a ministry priority. 'We've got plenty more important things to worry about than the ghoulish fascinations of the Unspeakables. They've informed me that they have plenty of oddities that will aid them in their study, and the loss of this particular item is not a significant one.' When asked for a possible motive for this theft, Scrimgeour would only say that there was none that he could think of.
"This being the third break-in into the Department of Mysteries in less than three years, questions are once again being raised about security at the Ministry, and whether or not it is good enough. Not for the first time, several high ranking Ministry officials are proposing the relocation of selected Ministry departments of a more secretive and sensitive nature to a secret location, to remain undisclosed except to the people who would work there. If this idea gains more support, we can likely expect a vote on it within the next 6 months.
"For a history of Arcturus' Gate (and many myths that have sprung up around it) , please see page 5."
Harry put the paper down, and smirked. "If I go tell the Baron about this, will that satisfy you?"
Hermione nodded. "So, did you get the locket?" she asked. "I kind of get the feeling you would have shown it to me already if you had."
"We didn't get the locket," Harry said. "We did get another lead to follow…" He looked over at Remus, wondering how he should continue.
"What?" Hermione asked. "What's wrong with you two?"
"While we didn't get the locket," Remus said, "we did get a couple of messages from Severus Snape. He seemed to think he knew what the last two Horcruxes were."
Hermione gasped. "Messages..? I don't.."
"We'll explain that part later," Harry interrupted her.
"I wonder if you would mind bringing me the Black genealogy book," said Remus. "I'm curious about something."
Hermione looked confused, but she nodded. "I was reading it upstairs. I'll be right back."
Harry and Remus walked in and collapsed onto the living room couch, both exhausted. After a moment, Hermione arrived back downstairs, clutching the book to her chest. She handed it to Remus, who immediately turned to the end of the family tree section. After a moment, he hissed in breath like he'd been stung.
"Well," he said softly. "Well well. Now we know what they've decided to name the lad."
He lowered the book so that Harry and Hermione could see it. There, at the bottom right side of the page:
Narcissa Cassiopeia Black (b. 1955)----------------------------------------------------- ?
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Salazar Slytherin Black
Harry and Hermione stared at this new entry for a few beats, not quite sure what to think. Even though Snapettigrew had revealed that Narcissa was carrying Voldemort's child, it hadn't yet seemed real to Harry.
"I wonder what the question mark is for," said Hermione.
Remus and Harry decided that now was the time to fill Hermione in, and took turns re-telling everything they had experienced at Azkaban. When they were finished, Hermione lightly brushed Harry's hair out of his eyes with her hands, revealing his scar.
"How…" she whispered. "How are we supposed to destroy this?"
"I suppose the obvious is out of the question?" asked Remus. "Having someone at St. Mungo's remove it, and then just destroying it by itself?"
"That'd be nice," said Harry, "but it sounds too easy. I think I even remember Dumbledore saying that he didn't know if he himself could remove it or not, and that he was reluctant to try."
Hermione said nothing at first, and she began to thumb through the book absently. "Snape said Voldemort chose this book because it tied in with he and Narcissa having a child?"
"Thus adding to the Black family and history," said Harry, "of which that book is all about."
"If this was a homemade family tree like Sirius', that might make sense," said Hermione. "It just doesn't seem important enough. There's got to be something else.. something else that would make this book so significant to him…"
Hermione's eyes suddenly grew wide. "Harry… this settles it. We're going to see the Baron. Now."
Remus chuckled, and Harry merely made a brief sound of annoyance. "It's nearly 10:30 at night and the two of us have just spent most of the day at one of the worst places in the world," said Harry. "We're not going anywhere tonight!"
Hermione looked at Harry with a scowl that would have made Mrs. Weasley proud. "Get something warm to wear Harry. We're going tonight." Before Harry could protest further, she ran out of the room to grab something warm to wear for herself.
As she ran back in, Harry asked, "Can you at least tell me why it needs to be tonight?"
"No!" she yelled. "Now come on! Both of you!" With that, she ran out the front door.
"I hate when she does this!"
Harry stomped upstairs to grab a sweater, and when he came back downstairs Hermione was back inside. "Bring the Marauder's Map Harry!"
"What? Why?"
"If you're right about Hagrid, there will be nobody to let us inside the castle this time!"
Harry winced. He had almost forgotten about Hagrid.
"Hurry!" Hermione yelled, and ran back outside again to wait for them.
Harry came rushing back downstairs after finding the map, and once again Hermione was inside. "Your knife! The one that opens any lock! Get that too!"
"It was destroyed at the Ministry, Hermione," said Harry, and he yawned.
"Oh.. oh yeah," Hermione said. "Well.. bring a flashlight, or something useful!"
By the time Harry came back down a third time, he was quite out of breath. Luckily Hermione was still outside this time. He plodded outside to join her and Remus.
"Come on, come on!"
Without waiting, Hermione popped away
Remus looked down at Harry and sighed wistfully. "Well, I didn't want to sleep tonight anyway Harry." He grinned and popped away. Harry shook his head angrily and joined them.
- - -
He arrived at Remus' side at the edge of the borders of Hogwarts, and saw that Hermione had already started sprinting towards the castle. "Whatever she thinks she knows," said Remus, "she's going to be terribly disappointed if she's wrong."
"That's the problem," said Harry. "She's almost never wrong."
Harry and Remus half-heartedly struggled to catch up with her. They finally did a mere 4 yards from the main entrance to the castle. They were both out of breath, while Hermione appeared completely invigorated.
"The map, Harry," she demanded. "I want to know exactly where the Baron is."
Harry dug the map out of his pocket and thrust it into her waiting hands.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," Hermione said.
As she pored over the map, Harry and Remus sat down on the grass to rest. After a few minutes, Hermione sat down beside Remus with a puzzled look on her face.
"Remus…" she said, "I see a couple people in the castle… but the only ghost I see is Binns.."
"A couple people?" asked Harry and Remus at once. "Who?"
"I don't recognize either of these names!" Hermione exclaimed. "Simon Fisher-Becker? Lady Jane Grey?"
Remus took the map from her and examined it for a moment. Finally, he said "Ah… of course." He looked amused. "Hermione, you didn't think that somebody would actually name their child The Fat Friar, did you?"
"Umm.. well no."
"Simon Fisher-Becker is obviously the Fat Friar. Lady Jane Grey.. well that's the Grey Lady I suppose." He searched the map for a moment. "Ah, and here is Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington in Gryffindor Tower. Better known to you as Nearly Headless Nick," Remus concluded. "The map shows names, not nick names… no pun intended."
Hermione nodded her understanding, took the map back from him and continued searching. After a moment, she smiled widely. "Just as I thought." She spread out the map in front of Harry and Remus and pointed to the Slytherin common room…
To where the ghost of the Baron Arcturus Black, better known to scores of Hogwarts students as The Bloody Baron, was hovering in front of the fireplace.
- - -
"Even if I did have my knife, it wouldn't get us in to the Slytherin common room," said Harry. "Only the password works on the dorm entrances."
They had found their way inside the castle, and were now in the dungeons, discussing how they were going to contact the Baron. He had not moved from his position in front of the Slytherin fireplace the entire time it had taken them to get down there.
Harry looked at Hermione. "Now that we're stuck for a moment, do you think you could tell us what we're doing here in the middle of the night?"
"I would have thought that was obvious by now, Harry," said Remus. "Whatever Voldemort may or may not be up to, it's been attempted once before. Now that we know who he really is, Hermione must think that the Baron can fill in the blanks for us."
"And do you think he can, Remus?" asked Hermione.
"I'm actually too tired to have an opinion," said Remus. "Right now just consider me along for the ride."
Hermione paced back and forth in front of the blank wall that led to the Slytherin dormitories. "Parselmouth…………. Mudblood……… Imperio…… Crucio…."
"What are you doing?" asked Harry.
"Trying to guess the password, of course. Inferi… Lycanthrope…"
At this last try, the wall began to rumble, and Hermione jumped backward with a shriek. But the wall remained shut, and they soon saw that the source of the rumbling was the Baron passing through the wall.
"Potter," the Baron said with a sneer. "You just can't go very long without breaking school rules, can you? Even when the school is closed! Ah! And I see you've brought some friends! Or should I say, accomplices?"
"You told me to come to you if I thought I saw more signs that your 'folly' was being attempted again," said Harry indignantly. "Well, I believe I've seen more." Harry thought for a moment, then added, "Arcturus."
The effect was immediate. Arcturus hissed at the three of them and flew over their heads, a red gleam in his eyes. All three were startled and caught off balance, so that they fell to the floor. "So. You've pieced it together…. Though probably not all of it. Can I assume, then, that this is the brilliant Hermione you spoke of last time?"
Harry nodded. "I'll get right to the point. Arcturus' Gate has been stolen from the Ministry of Magic."
Arcturus' mood changed at once; he suddenly appeared terrified and very very old. "You are sure of this," he whispered. Harry and Hermione nodded.
Hermione added, "2 muggle born children have been kidnapped in the last 3 months, and it appears they were both taken by the same person. One, a girl, was born during the spring equinox. The other, a boy, was born during the summer solstice." Harry and Remus gaped at her: she had not told them about this.
Arcturus sighed deeply and closed his eyes, his face full of worry. "Very well, Potter, Hermione," said Arcturus, trying to regain his composure. "You have done as I have asked. I will now tell you the full story of the day I shuffled off my mortal coil. The day that we tried and failed to perform The Black Sacrifice."
"The Black Sacrifice?" Harry, Hermione, and Remus asked at once.
"Quite possibly the most evil spell ever imagined, both in its intent and in its execution." He hesitated. "I hope that… by telling you this in hopes to prevent it from happening again, I will have proven to you my remorse over the whole thing."
The three humans looked back and forth at each other, and nodded hesitantly.
"Don't misunderstand me. I don't feel remorse simply because I died in the attempt. The centuries since have given me a lot of time to reflect on what a horrible thing I did. I am not the least bit proud of what I am about to tell you."
Arcturus looked around at the three of them, still dreading telling this story. But he was committed now.
"Before we had made the attempt, the Sacrifice had been performed twice successfully, to my knowledge. Both successful attempts were led by ancestors of mine. The purpose of the spell is to call upon the spirit of a once living human, and place it into a fresh new host body to live anew. In each of the successful attempts prior to our attempt, the host body was that of a first-born Black male. Hence the name, the Black Sacrifice.
"The host body in our attempt was my newborn son, Sirius."
Harry tensed at hearing this. "Your son was named Sirius Black?"
Arcturus nodded. "The Blacks, you may have noticed, love to name children after the stars. Sirius was quite a popular name for male Blacks. There have been at least 4, to my knowledge. Along the same lines, I was the third Arcturus in our family.
Hermione appeared to be thinking something over, and she finally asked hesitantly "Whose spirit were you trying to call upon, Mr.. uh.. Baron..Black..?"
Arcturus looked over at her. "I'll get to that," he said coldly. Hermione looked down at the floor and said no more.
"Dark wizards in my day and age were without a strong leader, and thus, they were more likely to act rashly and irresponsibly. Many thought that I should declare myself as some sort of leader for Dark wizards to rally behind, but I did not want that responsibility. In short, we needed a strong minded (and willing) Dark wizard to unite us, but there seemed to be none living at the time.
"I knew of an obscure ritual that had been passed down in secret from father to son in my family. It was decided amongst my close circle of friends that if we could not find a uniter among the living, we would find one among the dead.
Arcturus hesitated again. The next part was going to be the most difficult to tell.
"The ceremony itself was remarkably simple; it was the preparation that was complicated. The blood of 100 unicorns was required, and catching 100 unicorns is not easy at all.
"4 large cauldrons were placed around the Gate, at each point of the compass, with the Gate at the exact center. Each cauldron was filled with the blood of 25 of the unicorns."
Hermione spoke up again. "We learned in our first year that anyone who kills a unicorn is cursed! Who could have survived killing 100 of them?"
"Dementors," said Arcturus simply. "Dementors have no problem with the curse that comes with killing a unicorn. They did it all for us." He again gazed at her coldly, daring her to interrupt him again.
"As I was saying, 4 cauldrons, filled with unicorn blood. Once the cauldrons were full, into each one was placed… an infant wizard."
Hermione gasped. Harry only nodded as if he had been expecting this.
"Why only muggle borns sir?" asked Harry.
"Being a muggle-born was not necessary for the children in the ritual," said Arcturus. "We simply figured that if we were going to sacrifice four children, they might as well be Mudbloods." Harry could hear Hermione grinding her teeth at this last part, but she remained quiet. "The requirements were that they be wizards, and that we had boys from the Solstices and girls from the Equinoxes. The reason for that last part has been lost in time, I'm afraid."
This last part made a light go on in Harry's head. "What about the child being a first-born male? Was the reason for that lost in time as well?"
Arcturus thought about this for a moment. "Indeed… I do not know why that was a requirement either. The host child did not need to be male… but I am certain that a first born was required."
Harry said nothing to this; he merely sat back, smiling thoughtfully. Hermione looked over to inquire what he was smiling about, but by then Arcturus was continuing.
"The purpose of the four infant wizards is troubling… I wonder if I should continue. It will not be a pleasant thing to hear, and it is not necessary for you to know their purpose to prevent this from happening again."
Remus spoke up. "I think it is best," he said softly, "that we hear all the facts. No matter how unpleasant they may be. Then we can decide for ourselves if they are useful or not."
Arcturus nodded. "An infant placed into unicorn's blood… will be in a perpetual state of limbo. Hovering back and forth between life and death. For while the blood suffocates them, it also, by its very nature, prevents them from dying… Imagine drowning, but not being able to die…
"Opening the Gate is a very dangerous task. You open the door to all kinds of malevolent spirits, and there is simply no way to block them. Some are the ghosts of dead humans, some spirits were never human at all, but they all exist on the same plane that the Gate leads to.
"Nothing is more attractive to a spirit than a living human… and the most attractive form of life is a new life. Spirits are driven towards a new life by both a sense of terrible envy and intense fascination. The four infant children, with their souls jumping in and our of their body like that, draw malevolent spirits to them like moths to a flame. Leaving us alone to perform the ritual relatively undisturbed…"
Arcturus stopped again to observe his guests, who were all horrified.
"Once the spirits are occupied with the 4 children, the calling forth of the particular ghost you wish to ressurect is a relatively simple enchantment. The host body must be placed directly in front of the Gate at precisely the moment when the spirit comes through it. The spirit inhabits the body, the body's old soul enters the gate to replace it, the Gate is closed, and afterwards the spirits who are left outside the gate are weakened when the link to their homeworld is cut off. They become relatively easy to banish afterwards."
Remus thought this over for a moment. "You speak about all of this as if you were successful, when we already know you weren't. So what happened? Why did you fail where your ancestors succeeded?"
Arcturus thought this over, wondering where he should begin. "In order to locate the correct spirit, the ritual must be performed where they died, and as close as possible to the time of year that they died. We needed to perform the ritual in June, and we had all four children as early as February. But in the last week of May, one of the children was rescued.
"The WHPS, of which I helped form, had just that year formed an elite squad of dark wizard catchers which they called Aurors. A young Auror, intent on making a name for himself, had been tracking our movements from afar and had discovered what we intended to do. He assumed that by rescuing one of the children, we would be unable to continue with our plans.
"Unfortunately for us, we were desperate, and by the time the deadline rolled around, we were still one child short. Foolishly, we came to the decision that 3 children would be enough to pacify the spirits we would encounter. And at first, we were right.
"But when we placed my son on to the altar, their interest could not be held by the other three children alone. They started to go after my son as well, and when I removed him from the altar to try and protect him, they became infuriated. I knew the ritual was a failure already, so in an attempt to at least try to save myself, I placed my son back on to the altar and made a run for it. As I fled from the scene, I noticed that the three cauldrons that had held the children had all been dumped by the spirits; only the one without a child remained upright and full. The children, free from the unicorn blood, would be dead, leaving nothing behind to distract the spirits.
"Hundreds of people had turned up to watch the ritual performed, and the scene was one of utter chaos. People were being torn apart by spirits left and right, but for reasons unknown, I was left alone in my flight. It seems that a particularly mischievous spirit had set his sights on me and had asked the others to leave me alone.
"I heard a kind of whistling sound behind me, and turned to see the full cauldron of unicorn blood flying straight towards me. The spirit upended the blood directly over me, cursing me to death almost immediately. The last thing I heard was this spirit's cackling laughter.
Arcturus paused yet again, looking down to observe the silvery blood stains all down his shirt.
"I was the leader of the ritual and the only Black (other than my son) present. With me dead, the Gate began to shut, and many of the spirits (not to mention a few solid objects like the cauldrons) were sucked back through the portal. Once it was shut, there was nothing left behind to give anyone any idea of what had happened there. And I certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell them. Nobody until now has known who the Bloody Baron really is…"
"There has to be someone," said Hermione. "Otherwise, how would someone know enough to perform the ritual again?"
"I've only told one other person of these things, and not nearly with as much detail as I've told you," said Arcturus. "A brilliant young Slytherin prefect, who was obsessed with Hogwarts history, badgered me into telling him the story in his 6th year here. Though I left out the identity of Arcturus Black of course. Now… what was his name… it's been so long!"
"Tom Riddle," said the three of them at once.
"Yes, that was it!" said Arcturus. "How did you know?"
Hermione didn't answer this; instead she asked a question of her own. "You never told us who you were trying to resurrect sir."
Arcturus sighed. "Is it really that important? Alright, I can see that it is. You see, we wanted a leader who would command respect immediately; we were too impatient for someone to gain respect over time. Someone whose name alone would command the loyalty of all the Dark wizards in the country. We were trying to resurrect Salazar Slytherin."
"And that's exactly who Voldemort is trying to resurrect," said Remus in an awed voice. "Which means we have until June to stop him…"
Harry ignored this; something else was gnawing at him. "Arcturus… the Auror… the Auror who rescued the baby.. whatever happened to him?"
"Once he realized we weren't going to be deterred, he showed up at the ceremony site," said Arcturus sadly. "He got there too late to prevent anything though. In my first few minutes as a ghost, I saw his dead body clearly on the north side of the Gate. He looked awful; it looked like the spirits had set him on fire.
Arcturus looked towards the stone floor, an unseen smile spreading across his face. "But when a man is determined enough, you'd be surprised what he can accomplish. That same Auror came back to the school a year later and applied for a teaching position. It seems he never wanted to be too far from the site again, in case anyone decided to attempt the Sacrifice again. He became a bit obsessive, actually."
Harry, Hermione, and Remus exchanged looks, completely confused. "If he died the same day you did, how did he come back a year later to teach?" asked Harry. "Was he a ghost? A ghost teacher like Binns?"
"No," said Arcturus. "No, he was not a ghost. He was as alive as you are. But I am not mistaken when I say that he was most definitely dead the year before."
"But…" stammered Hermione, "that's simply impossible!"
"Young lady," said Arcturus, grinning, "one thing I've learned in my two centuries at this school is that when you're dealing with Albus Dumbledore, the word 'impossible' rarely comes in to play."
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