Chapter 48 - The Black Family

I said "So I am related to the Blacks even though very distantly. That's good to know I guess but then why contact me urgently now? Shouldn't you have asked for a meeting the moment I joined the Magical world?"

Black "I came to know about your relation to me just recently when I started looking through the Family tree to find remaining members of the Black family. As you may know the Black family is down to very last of its members and is in danger of extinction. The wizarding wars were not good for the family and many died fighting in the war. I do not want the family to become extinct under my care as I won't be able to answer to my ancestors in the afterlife if that happened. So for the past few years since the war I was looking for the remaining members of the Black family."

I asked "Black family is very old so I am sure you would have found many people in other families who had ancestors belonging to the Black family."

Black "Black family is old but again the last two wars have not been good for it. Many black family members and their descendants in other families died during the two wars. So my search was very disappointing. I found very few members alive. You, Harry Potter, Cygnus Black, his children Narcissa and Bellatrix, his grandson Draco Malfoy and Cassiopeia Black who moved to France after the last war."

I said "Eight people. That is still better than the condition of the Falken family. What about the disowned members of the family? You can reinstate them into the family to increase the numbers."

Black "If it was possible then the number would have doubled just by bringing Cedrella Weasley back into the family. But the Black family charter does not allow the disowned members to be brought back. Disownment is permanent in Black family. I would have liked to bring Andromeda back into the family. Her daughter, Nymphadora who has the Black family gift would have been a great addition to the declining Black family. Andromeda was a good child but belonging to Cygnus's family meant that there were some lines that she should not have crossed."

I asked "Was Sirius Black disowned as well? You did not mention him throughout our conversation. I thought you would have kept him in the family so that when either side won in the war, the Black family would have had an Heir in the winning side who would have ensured that the Black family lived on."

Black "Yes he was disowned and he was disowned even after considering that scenario due to his beliefs that were not suited for a member of the Black family. Why are you bringing up the case of Sirius Black anyway? He has a life sentence in Azkaban and there is no way he will ever get out."

I said "Just that he is there without a trial and I think that he is innocent. I looked into his case to understand why Sirius Black who considered James Potter as a brother, betrayed the Potter's location. My research found many problems with his case. Many basic procedures that would have found him not guilty were not followed in his case even though many of his friends should have had doubts about his guilt."

Black "I always thought there was something wrong with his case too but when his own allies told me that he was guilty, I did not look into his case in detail. If you think, he is innocent then do you think there was foul play involved in his case? And why?"

I replied "Yes there was foul play involved and the reason he was sent to prison is very simple. He is the godfather of Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived."

Black "So Dumbledore wanted to control the Boy Who Lived and Sirius had to be sent away to make that possible. All for the greater good I am sure. I am one of the few people who knows about the real Dumbledore and it seems you know the true face of Dumbledore too. Very good. Many people worship him as the next Merlin even though he has not done much for the Wizarding world. In case of Sirius, there is not much I can do to get him out even if I wanted to. He has to live with the repercussions of his decisions."

I asked "What did Sirius Black do to make you angry?"

Black "It's a long story and the gist of it is that after he joined Hogwarts he became a Dumbledore follower and gave up on the family. He was always a little rebellious but after a year at Hogwarts, he started criticizing our traditions and started hating the Dark side. It annoyed his mother a lot and she tried many ways to make him see reason. Instead of trying to understand our views and correct his, he decided to run away from home and went to the Potters, who took him in. The Potters too did not like the views of their son and Sirius too but James was their only son who was born very late in their life. They decided to spoil him due to it and did not have the heart to scold him about his beliefs. They also did not have enough time to correct his views since they died just after his Hogwarts graduation. When we saw that there was no way we could change Sirius's views, he was disowned so that Regulus could be groomed as the Heir. It was the only way Regulus could be made the Heir. I hope atleast now he is regretting his decisions in Azkaban. If he was still a member of the Black family, he would not have spent even a single day in Azkaban."

I agreed with his decision concerning Sirius. It was his decisions that made his life at home difficult. Even if he did not like his family's views he should not have tried to anger them by openly cursing their views. Sirius was too immature and Dumbledore took advantage of that to make him a follower. Similarly, a spoiled Heir like James was an easy target for Dumbledore. By forgiving them for their pranks at school with his grandfatherly smile and letting them have free reign at Hogwarts to continue pranking, he gained the trust of the immature boys. The trust led them to their current fate.

I asked "I hope he learns his lesson during his time in the prison. Did you look into the descendants of the squibs born into the family as well or were the squibs disowned as well?"

Black "None of the pureblood family go into the trouble to disown the squibs as it is little troublesome to disown squibs. They just remove the children's memories and leave them at muggle orphanages. I did look into the squibs and their descendants. We have had only a few squibs born into the family and the descendants of the recent ones have not gained magic. Unfortunately, I was not able to look into descendants of squibs born a few centuries back since they did not live in Britain anymore. Almost all of them had moved to USA."