Harry Potter & The Black Sacrifice
Post 5 : A Long Expected Revelation
CHAPTER 3
A Long-Expected Revelation
Harry returned home that evening to find Hermione waiting for him in the cavernous Potter dining room. She had brought three books with her, and had laid them all out on the table.
"Hi!" he said. "I thought Ron would be with you."
"Molly.." she started, then blushed and caught herself. "I mean Mrs. Weasley is starting to suspect something. His visits are going to have to be less frequent for now."
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell her…" Or Ginny, he thought.
"No it wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't help either." She said sternly. "If there was any way to keep it from him I wouldn't have even told Ron. He's a horrible liar, in case you haven't noticed." She studied his face. "The less people that know, the better. Mrs. Weasley would agree with me."
"Ok, fine. What did you bring for me?"
"Maybe nothing. Two of them are actually Muggle books, but something in each of them caught my eye. The third is… well I'll let you see for yourself."
Harry's eyes skimmed over the first two titles without much interest. His eyes came to rest on the third and he let out a small gasp.
The Noble & Most Ancient House of Black – A History & Genealogy
"Where did you get this?" he exclaimed.
She hesitated, then said "It was in the Shrieking Shack. I'm thinking somebody didn't want it to be found."
Harry gaped at her. "Just what the hell were you doing in the Shrieking Shack?" he asked, stunned.
"It was pure luck, actually. I was in Hogsmeade to pick up something from Dervish & Banges, and it dawned on me that it would be a brilliant place to stash a Horcrux. Voldemort wouldn't even have to try that hard to set up magical protection; the place's reputation was enough to keep people out."
Harry knew the answer already, but he asked "And did you find anything?"
Hermione sighed. "Of course not; I would have told you already. I did find a library on the second floor though, and it's definitely something I will want to investigate further. That's where I found that book."
"Ok… so have you read any of it yet?"
"Yes. Before I show you what I've found, I want to ask you: do you know what the names Sirius & Regulus have in common?"
"Umm.. they both end in 'us' ?"
Hermione looked annoyed. "It appears you've been paying as much attention in Astronomy as you have in History. They're both stars Harry."
"Ok, so they're both stars. So?"
"So….. Sirius is considered by many to be the brightest star in the sky…"
"This will eventually have a point, right?" Harry asked, sounding even more annoyed than Hermione looked.
"Do you want to hear what I found or not?!"
"Yes, ok, fine."
"Regulus is considered one of the brightest as well… but the third brightest is called Arcturus. Look up Arcturus Canopus Black in the index."
Harry grabbed the book and opened it, receiving a large amount of dust in his face as a reward. He thumbed through the index and found it – Arcturus Black, pages 456-457,460-472
"Skip 456 and 457," Hermione said. "Go straight to 460."
Harry found the page and saw that it was the beginning of a chapter – Notable Blacks of the 1700s. He began to read.
The Black family was one of the few pureblood familys to end the 17th century with most of their records (dating back to the 2nd Century B.C. at least) completely intact. Muggle persecution of wizardkind had been going on for centuries, and while most wizarding families knew how to protect themselves by the time 1600 came around, much of their ancient history and bloodline information had been destroyed by Muggle fanaticism before then. The Black family was one of a very few exceptions, due to the extreme measures that most Black patriarchs took throughout the centuries to inundate their homes with Muggle repelling charms.
Because of this, Blacks throughout the ages were considered the authority on protection from Muggles…
Harry stopped here. "Protection from Muggles? What's so difficult about that?"
"If you had paid attention in your history class, you'd know that until about 800-900 years ago, Muggles co-existed peacefully with our kind, fully aware of our existence. Between the first and fifth centuries though, a rift began to grow, and Muggles began to view our kind with unfounded mistrust. By the end of the 1400s, the majority of Muggles outright hated us, and many of them tried to have us wiped out. But even though this happened over a long period, it took a while for it to sink in with many wizard families, so for years our world had it's collective guard down. It's one of the reasons the ministry exists. Keep reading!"
In 1721, it was decided by the wizarding community at large that an official organization should exist for the sole purpose of keeping our existence guarded from Muggle-kind. This organization, known then as the Wizarding Heritage Protection Society, would eventually usurp the obsolete Wizard's Council and evolve into the first Ministry of Magic.
The first elected head of the WHPS, by a unanimous vote, was Arcturus Canopus Black (b. 1693)
Harry looked up again, but Hermione shushed him and urged him to keep reading.
Arcturus proved to be a worthy leader, as he was stern but fair, and well liked by all who knew him. But many of his ideas concerning the handling of Muggles, though well-intentioned, were considered too extreme in the eyes of many. For example, his introductory proposition to the society was to allow the extermination of Muggles to the brink of extinction, in order to indoctrinate the survivors and raise them as subservients to Wizards, much like house-elves. As many wizards considered this too ludicrous to be anything but a joke, it was almost unanimously voted down. Arcturus was not to be deterred, though.
In his three years as head of the WHPS, his proposed bills included: worldwide Muggle sterilization, feeding Muggle criminals to dragons, Wizard regulation of Muggle religions (especially those that had led the persecution of Wizards in the past), and the infamous final bill of his career, his proposition to grant selected Pureblood families the right of Jus Primae Noctis over the Muggles in their vicinity…
"Jus Primae Noctis?" Harry asked.
"It would basically mean that Muggles would be bred out of existence." Hermione said cryptically. "Have you read enough?"
"I suppose… I still don't know where this is going though."
Hermione sighed, amused and exasperated at the same time. "Harry, doesn't Arcturus sound like the exact kind of Wizard that Sirius' parents would admire…. perhaps enough to name a son after?"
"Yeah… but they didn't…"
"No. No they didn't. But maybe one of them had Arcturus for a middle name…"
Hermione paused and hid a smile as Harry worked it out in his head.
"Regulus…. Holy…"
"Look at the genealogy in the back. It's complete all the way through Draco Malfoy." Harry looked puzzled. "His mother, Harry! His mother was a Black."
"Oh… oh yeah."
Harry turned to the end of the book. There, staring him in the face in bold letters, right next to Sirius' name:
Regulus Arcturus Black (b. 1963)
R.A.B.
Harry sighed and collapsed into a chair. "O.k…. you found him. Now what?"
Hermione paused. "Well, that's something we're going to need to work out together, all three of us. But this is the best lead we've had; I expected you to be excited."
Harry chuckled. "Oh, I am. But knowing who R.A.B. is is barely scratching the surface. We've still got a long way to go; this just reminded me of that. I mean, how much does this really tell us?"
"It gives us a starting point at any rate. Plus, for what it's worth, it proves that Sirius' nobility was not a fluke. Even though he didn't know who you were, Regulus died to help you out…"
Harry became angry at this last bit. "Yeah, and in doing so he helped weaken Dumbledore enough to be killed as well. You'll pardon me if I don't feel particularly forgiving of him just yet."
"He had no way of knowing that would happen."
"I know. I still am not ready to let this particular bygone be bygone. Ask me again once Voldemort is dead."
"Fair enough."
Harry looked over at the other two books Hermione had brought with her. These two were brand new.
"Great Britain's 100 Most Haunted Places? And Unexplained Mysteries of the British Isles? Going ghost hunting are we?" Harry asked, confused again.
"Well, I started thinking. What would happen if a Muggle stumbled upon the cave with the fake Horcrux? Hypothetically of course, how would they react to the Inferi or to the mysterious green glow in the center of a lake?"
"They would probably think the cave was…" Harry grinned. "Haunted?"
Hermione beamed. "Precisely. Now, you said that the protection that was set up around the cave was meant only to keep out wizards…."
"But Voldemort probably wouldn't have bothered setting up any Muggle protection…"
"So maybe over the years some Horcruxes have already been found… by Muggles," she finished for him.
Harry was silent for a while as he thought about this. "Wouldn't it be so perfect…"
Again, Hermione finished for him. "If Voldemort's underestimation of Muggles proved to be his downfall. I was just thinking the same thing."
Harry smiled his first real smile in weeks. "Let's get reading."
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