The Daily Prophet, 1 November 1971
Personal Assistant to Minister for Magic Retires
The long-time Personal Assistant to Minister for Magic Uther Talley has unexpectedly announced his retirement. Dagnus Dinglewald, 45, has served as the Minister’s assistant since 1958, when Mr Talley first came to significance within the Ministry as the newly-appointed Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.
Mr Dinglewald’s retirement comes as something of a surprise to those close to the Minister, who claim that Mr Talley has always relied heavily on Mr Dinglewald’s advice, especially since his appointment as Minister for Magic in 1968. Although Mr Dinglewald declined to comment upon his departure, it is understood that his reasons for leaving are related to his health and a desire to spend more time with his family.
‘He hasn’t been himself at all,’ Mr Talley told reporters. ‘Not been very well, you see? I hate to lose him, but what can you do? A fellow’s hands are tied when it’s his health at stake, you know. Mrs Dinglewald will be pleased to have him at home, at least.’
Replacing Mr Dinglewald is Ada Bulstrode, formerly a Senior Clerk with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Mr Talley has described her as ‘accomplished’.
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After the incident with Henry Marlow, Charlie made a point of avoiding The Three Broomsticks for several weeks, in case Marlow was determined enough to wait for him to return there. Ultimately, however, Charlie was little bothered by the thought of the Hit Wizard. Ministry officials did not overly vex him after the many years he had spent eluding them, and Marlow had seemed interested not so much in Charlie himself as in uncovering any avenue of information available. He was certain to have other leads to pursue that would soon put any thoughts of an old Knockturn Alley wizard from his mind.
So, once again, Charlie found himself returning to business as usual. As November brought with it chill days and bitter eastern winds, he was pleased to hear that the Kresterbach family had finally finished tying up all of its loose ends in Britain and had returned to Germany, forty years after Muggle-born Sebastian Kresterbach had first founded his revolutionary attachable broom seat company. This news was followed shortly by an unusually high number of requests that Charlie find appropriate buyers for such things as magical feather-stuffing machines and enchanted sewing needles. The clients making these requests of him assured him that each of these items had been lawfully procured, but Charlie knew each client’s reputation well enough to be confident of the exact opposite.
This made for a welcome relief from the increasing number of Dark objects that Charlie was both acquiring and selling on behalf of a large number of clients. It was a trend that he had noticed long before the Ministry, but unlike the Ministry, he was not excessively worried about it. In his many years in the wizarding underworld, Charlie had witnessed many short-lived trends that had concerned the Ministry in their time: a month long fascination with pet Grindylows, a briefly booming market in hair loss poisons, and an overwhelming, if fleeting enthralment with snuffboxes filled with Wartcap Powder. Even the legitimate market had endured such mercifully short-lived fads as the boom in lace-collared robes.
Indeed, Charlie’s greatest objection to the Dark object black market was not in the nature of the objects that he helped to trade, but in the fact that the market was so robust that it greatly detracted from the time he could give over to potions-making, which was by far his favourite pastime. Yet Charlie found even his potions in unusually high-demand as November wore on. Poisons had always been very saleable, being far less expensive if concocted in Britain, rather than smuggled into the country. Increasingly, however, he was also beset with requests for potions that were, strictly speaking, legal, but far cheaper to procure on the black market, where Ministry-imposed taxes and duties did not penetrate. In the latter half of November, Charlie began taking numerous orders for Wit-Sharpening Potion, Exploding Fluid, Forgetfulness Potion, Polyjuice Potion, and Veritaserum, among others. Marius Mulciber alone ordered fully a dozen vials of Veritaserum, which had caused Charlie to nearly choke. By mid-December, there were no less than eighteen cauldrons of varying sizes and metals scattered about Charlie’s London flat, all bubbling and smoking with some draught or another.
Between this busyness and the approach of the festive season, Charlie soon forgot about the mild hubbub that had accompanied the Kresterbaches’ departure. It was not long before vendors peddling everything from carolling candles to life-size enchanted snowmen were lining the sides of Diagon Alley. In shop windows there appeared a vast array of festive displays: self-stirring peppermint hot chocolate, magically-refilling stockings, singing and dancing Christmas trees, angel-shaped Christmas ornaments that squabbled about the merits of gingerbread and fruit cake, and mountains of sweets that dwarfed most of the children who ogled at them.
And then, almost before Charlie had had the chance to appreciate the onset of the holidays, it was nearly Christmas. This year, Charlie would be spending Christmas with his Black relations. Despite lacking the enviable surname attachment to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, Charlie did hold a much-coveted titular position within the family by virtue of being the eldest nephew of one Hesper Gamp, who had married the first Sirius Black. This made him a first cousin to the current head of the Black dynasty, Arcturus Black. So at noon on the day before Christmas, Charlie left over the care of his many active potions to his elderly house-elf, Tolly, and set out for number twelve, Grimmauld Place in northeast London.
When he Apparated into the square outside the Black family home, Charlie found himself shivering slightly at the prick of a light, icy rainfall. He quickly gathered his robes about him and looked up at the row of grimy black houses that he faced. Almost immediately, the brooding shapes of Number Eleven and Number Thirteen seemed to grumble and whine as the bulk of another house slowly pushed out between the two, shoving each aside. In a matter of seconds, number twelve, Grimmauld Place stood there plain as day, yet not a single passerby seemed to have noticed that anything unusual had just occurred.
Charlie crossed the street and tugged on the bell that hung over number twelve’s gleaming black door. A loud clanging echoed behind the door. It took less than a minute for it to open, and when it did, a stooped old house-elf with a snout-like nose and a clean rag for clothing stood at Charlie’s feet. Despite the natural smallness of its race, the elf managed to stand nearly as high as Charlie’s naval.
“Mister Charlie!” Kreacher croaked graciously, bowing low as he stared up at Charlie through enormous grey eyes. “You is nearly late, Mister Charlie. Mistress is just saying so!”
Charlie grinned, pulling off his wizard’s cap as the house-elf waved him into the house with much continued bobbing and bowing. “Oh, well, much to be doing, you know,” he told Kreacher as he was helped to remove his cloak.
Kreacher closed the black door behind him and Charlie found himself in a magnificent entrance hall. Gas lamps and a low, crystal chandelier threw a glimmering light upon the rich green wallpaper, where silver and gold tracery added an extra glittering quality to the long, high-ceilinged hall. Large, exquisitely-detailed portraits of Blacks past and present lined the hall in dark, heavy frames, and each occupant of these portraits was now nodding cordially, if quite haughtily, at Charlie.
“Will Mister Charlie be wanting his Firewhisky?” Kreacher said, once Charlie had been relieved of his travelling clothes. “We is having a new bottle of Ogden’s just for Mister Charlie. Or Master is having a new bottle of red currant rum and is wanting Mister Charlie’s opinion of it.” The house-elf said all of this as he led Charlie up the ornate grand staircase that dominated the centre of the house.
“Ooh, the rum to start then,” Charlie said, following Kreacher as the elf left the stairs at the first floor and ushered Charlie towards what he knew to be the drawing room. “If I’m to be registering an opinion, I shouldn’t like to come to the conclusion that it has an aftertaste rather like Ogden’s Old Firewhisky, eh?”
They came to a set of double doors through which Charlie could hear the muffled murmur of conversation. Kreacher reached up and turned the handles of both doors, gave each a little shove, and then entered the drawing room with his gnarled old hands over his chest, already in a bowing position.
“Master, Mistress,” said the elf obediently. “Mister Charlie is arriving.”
He moved aside to allow Charlie to enter.
The drawing room was, if possible, even more magnificent than the entry hall below. The wall paper was still green, but it was patterned differently, more exquisite in its detail and somehow more evocative of the majesty and opulence of the Black family. Tall, wide windows looked out onto the square below, and a great stone fireplace was flanked on either side by elaborate glass-fronted cases. The wall opposite the fireplace was home to the immense Black family tapestry. It seemed to hang upon the wall like an ancient, wizened monarch, crouched over its dusty throne but ready always to spring forth and remind all those who looked upon it of the nobility of the family depicted therein.
“Charlie, welcome,” said a deep voice that was at once luxuriant and guttural. It came from the oldest person in the room, a man with silver, shoulder-length hair and a pointed beard. As Arcturus Black stood to greet his cousin, the others in the room rose as well, each returning Charlie’s respectful nod. Behind Arcturus stood his son Orion and daughter-in-law (and first cousin once removed, as it were) Walburga. Both came forward, graciously smiling at Charlie.
“Charlie, so good to see you. We worried you were delayed,” said Walburga, the Mistress that Kreacher so revered. She was a middle-aged woman, but not yet unattractive. Distinctive cheekbones and grey eyes were framed by rich black hair that was pulled into a tight bun, and she stood straight and proud, several inches taller than her husband.
Orion was more thickly built than his wife and had inherited his father’s heavy brow, but the clever grey eyes that met Charlie’s evidenced Black family blood like little else could. His hair was long, black and tied back, and a small goatee circled his lips. “Come in, Charlie, it has been too long,” he said.
“Ah, Arcturus, Orion, Walburga “ you are too kind,” Charlie returned genially to the Blacks. The atmosphere in the room was somehow informally formal, as between those who are well familiar with one another, but have been apart for some time.
Yet when Orion and Walburga stepped back to allow Charlie access to one of the plush armchairs that surrounded the fireplace, they revealed behind them two young boys, both with the characteristic boyish smoothness of face that foretold handsomeness once they approached adulthood. Each was standing respectfully, but while one “ the older of the two “ was barely concealing a grin, the other was maintaining a strictly formal stand to attention.
“Hello boys!” Charlie barked laughingly and in an instant the uncomfortable formality that seemed to oppress the drawing room dissolved. All three older Blacks smiled and, after a consenting nod from their mother, Sirius and Regulus ran forward into Charlie’s open arms.
“Hello, Uncle Charlie!” both said in unison as Charlie knelt to hug them tightly, then stood and ruffled their shoulder-length black hair.
“Hello boys, hello boys,” he chuckled, steering the brothers towards a long couch, where he sat them on either side of himself. “So, getting into lots of trouble, I hope? Showing off the famous Black cleverness and skill, I trust? Sirius, lad, how are you liking Hogwarts, eh? Quite a place, quite a place.”
Sirius beamed up at Charlie, clearly pleased to be given the opportunity to discuss Hogwarts. “Oh it’s great! It’s huge! I’ve got lost so many times, and then once, this stair took my leg and wouldn’t let me go for almost an hour”“
“”Third floor staircase?”
“No, first floor.”
“Ah! There used to be a big suit of armour there in my day “ would always warn its favourite students not to forget about that step. Always had to be careful you didn’t insult it, you know, which was really something because it had a helmet with this great beak-like thing on it that was difficult not to make fun of.”
Sirius looked near to bursting and Regulus was grinning in the vacant way of one who does not fully appreciate the subject of discussion, but is desperate and eager to hear more of it. Chuckling, Charlie looked up at the other three adults. They were all smiling, but there was something strained in their expressions, and Charlie broached, without ceremony, what he knew to be the elephant in the room.
“So, Sirius,” he said, looking seriously at the elder of the two boys. “You’re in Gryffindor, eh?”
Sirius instantly sobered. “Yes,” he answered in a small voice. His eyes flickered to the other Blacks as if he had already been made to answer copious questions on the subject of his Hogwarts house.
“Mm,” Charlie said. Silence hovered over the room. “Well...you’re still a Black. You’re still up on that tapestry, right? Just remember that, son.”
Sirius nodded feebly and his parents and grandfather each gave stiff, reassuring nods as well, though there was something of worried doubt still in their expressions. It was at this point that young Regulus superciliously chose to pipe up with a confident declaration: “If the Sorting Hat tries to put me in any of the other houses, I’m going to tell it to put me in Slytherin instead. I don’t want to be in another house.”
Charlie noticed that Arcturus, Orion and Walburga all looked much pleased to hear Regulus’s assertion, but Sirius immediately sank into a sulky silence that Charlie suspected he had hitherto maintained for most of the Christmas holiday so far.
After that, the conversation was dampened somewhat by the family’s unspoken agreement not to discuss Sirius’s unfortunate assignment of house. Arcturus and Charlie caught up on family matters, Orion and Walburga seemed eager to hear the sort of illegal business dealings that Charlie had had in the past six months, and Regulus complained to Charlie at length about the unfairness of his having to wait almost another year to start at Hogwarts. By the time that Kreacher had a dinner of honey-baked ham prepared for them, the Blacks had quite overcome the initial stiffness of a long separation and were treating Charlie like a favourite, if eccentric, uncle.
It was not until after dinner, when both boys had been sent upstairs for the night, that the matter of Sirius’s Hogwarts house was raised again, this time by a regretful-sounding Arcturus.
“That boy,” he sighed after Sirius had left the kitchen behind his brother. The Black patriarch helped himself to a glass of mulled wine as Kreacher circled the dining room table with a silver tray of wine and mince pies.
“Well, he always was a bit...off, wasn’t he?” Charlie said gingerly, also accepting one of the proffered goblets of spiced wine.
“Odd, yes,” Arcturus replied, “but this? He is a Gryffindor, Charlie. It goes against everything we stand for.”
“Perhaps he’ll grow out of it.”
“He is surrounded by their type now,” Walburga cut in. “He’s more likely to grow into it than out. My poor boy.” Her voice wavered as if she were wounded, yet even in her grief Walburga managed to maintain her proud posture. Her face was not so confident, however. The concealing smile that she had worn so well in the drawing room in front of her eldest son was not near so convincing now.
Yet Charlie snorted and waved a dismissive hand. “It’s just as likely to be a phase, Walburga, my dear. Young people go through phases all the time, usually for the sole purpose of vexing their parents. Sometimes it simply takes time for a boy to grow into himself. Why, Valens Malfoy and I were virtually enemies until our fourth year when we realised it would be much more beneficial to be allies. Sirius is eleven, he may yet grow out of it.” He took a thoughtful sip of his wine. “Have you written Dumbledore about it?”
“Of course, as soon as we heard,” Orion replied somewhat testily. “He refused to switch Sirius, of course. All manner of nonsense about it being the Sorting Hat’s decision, not his. As if that old coot weren’t pleased to claim a Black for his own house. Sirius does not belong with a bunch of weak-minded do-gooders.”
“Just keep reminding him that he is first and foremost a Black,” Charlie said smoothly. “That is a far first to any house at Hogwarts. Why, my brother was a Ravenclaw and my sister a Gryffindor, but they neither of them ever forgot the heritage they had to live up to. We purebloods can’t afford to.”
“You never speak to your sister,” Walburga pointed out gloomily.
“Bah,” Charlie snorted. “A difference of personalities. She does not approve of how I make my living “ it is nothing to do with our Hogwarts days. Remind Sirius of his responsibility as a Black, that’s the key.”
All three Blacks looked slightly mollified, and Arcturus in particular adopted a thoughtful expression. Charlie sought to reinforce this change in mood by adding, “Besides, Regulus is turning into a very fine boy.”
This had the desired effect. The worried half-sneers on the others’ faces faded into haughty, knowing smirks. They nodded.
“He certainly is,” Walburga stated briskly without modesty. “He is clever, resourceful, dutiful, ambitious and proud.”
“Everything a Black ought to be,” Orion added pointedly.
Arcturus’ commanding voice rumbled a silence over the dining table. “He ought to have been your first-born.” Orion looked inclined to agree and even Walburga, though she frowned unhappily, did not speak up to defend Sirius. Charlie could not help but feel a pang of sympathy for the eldest Black son. Although Sirius had remained resolutely quiet throughout dinner, Charlie had known him as a young boy to be something of a scoundrel and troublemaker. This had, admittedly, done much more to endear Sirius to Charlie’s devilish sense of humour than had all of Regulus’s dutiful pride in his ancestry.
Walburga broke the silence with a self-important sniff. “Last week Julietta tasked Regulus with an essay on the three people he would most like to grow up to be.” Julietta was the Black’s governess, Charlie knew. “He wrote that he would most like to be like his grandfather, Arcturus, his father, and the Dark Lord.”
Arcturus and Orion both adopted smirks that conveyed, not so subtly, That’s m’boy!
Charlie gave a pleasantly surprised smile. “Indeed? There’s a good boy. Though really, his grandfather Arcturus? I would have thought Pollux the more natural choice over this silver-haired old scallywag,” he added with a twinkling glance at his cousin.
“His grandfather Pollux does not have an Order of Merlin, First Class,” Arcturus returned smugly, as if this made all the difference. Walburga frowned at the slight upon her father’s character, but Charlie grinned.
“So he’s an admirer of the Dark Lord?” he continued, which returned a flush of pride to Walburga’s cheeks.
“Oh yes,” she nodded. “Arcturus and my father have given generously to the Dark Lord, so naturally Regulus takes an interest.”
“As he should,” Arcturus added. “He takes an interest already in the foremost threats that face our society. This is the mark of a true Black.”
“Then the Dark Lord ought himself to be a Black, in that case,” Charlie said jokingly. “Perhaps he is. Have you any unknown cousins called Voldemort Black?”
Orion frowned, failing, as he often did, to appreciate Charlie’s sense of humour. He rarely displayed the same patience for Charlie as his father Arcturus. “No,” he said simply.
“Ah, but how can you be sure if this cousin is, as I said, unknown to you, eh?”
“He is not,” Orion repeated. “His real name is not Voldemort. He was at school with me.”
“Oh?” said Charlie, leaning forward. He was interested now and pushed his empty wine goblet away from him. “You knew him? Who is he really then? I have heard only rumours of him, but I confess myself most intrigued.”
“I did not recognise him myself,” Orion said. Charlie had the impression from the other two that his was not the only rapt attention that Orion had captured. “He is much changed since Hogwarts. But his friends are the same, which is how I knew him for certain. He was once called Tom Riddle.”
“Riddle?” Charlie repeated. He did not recognise the name as belonging to any family of significance, but there was something about it that was temptingly familiar.
Orion nodded. “He was popular as a student. A Slytherin, of course.”
“So where does the name Voldemort come from?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Orion replied. “He was not called that when I knew him. Though I did not know him well, he was several years ahead of me.”
Charlie felt himself captivated now and he was smiling rather like a young a child hearing the story of his hero’s historic rise to fame. He picked at a half-eaten mince pie. “When did you meet him?” he pressed.
Arcturus answered this time. “This last summer. Pollux and I met with him after Avery approached us about helping to finance the Dark Lord’s cause. Orion accompanied.”
“Avery? Apsus Avery?” Charlie queried.
Orion shook his head. “His son, Aleron. And when we met with the Dark Lord, he was accompanied by Marius Mulciber, Restebus Lestrange and Thaddeus Nott. That was how I knew him, by his old friends.”
Arcturus shifted, then looked pointedly at his cousin. “This information is not to leave this house, Charlie.”
Charlie snorted and his expression became marginally offended. “As if I need to be told to be discrete, Arcturus. Well do I know the value of falling beneath the Ministry’s attention, and so far the Dark Lord has done just that. The Prophet does not know he exists and the Ministry thinks him little more than a petty smuggler.”
“Oh?” Arcturus said at the last, grey eyes narrowing. Charlie nodded and related to them the particulars of his encounter with Henry Marlow at The Three Broomsticks. All three Blacks looked divided, as if unsure what to think of the meeting.
“You ought to tell Bella,” Walburga said finally, once Charlie had finished.
A bemused expression crossed Charlie’s face and he scratched at his beard. “Bella? Bellatrix? Your niece?”
Walburga nodded. “She has joined the Dark Lord. She is one of his followers.” Her tone managed to combine pride in the fact that one of her close relations was so connected to the Dark Lord, and jealousy that her own sons were not yet old enough to follow suit.
“Has she?” Charlie said. “How old is she now?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one!” he exclaimed, laughing. “Little Bella, twenty-one years old, hah! Merlin’s beard, they just keep growing up, don’t they?” he added jokingly to Arcturus.
“She will be here tomorrow,” Walburga said. She continued at Charlie’s inquiring glance. “My mother and father are joining us for Christmas dinner and the Grande Operatus, as are my brothers, Alphard and Cygnus, and Cygnus’s family.”
“Ah good, excellent,”” Charlie returned, again grinning as that boyish side of him anticipated bearing some meaningful piece of information to the mysterious Dark Lord.
After that, the conversation turned to plans for the following day, and before long beds were beckoning. Kreacher showed Charlie up to a large bedroom on the second floor where two four-poster beds reached halfway up towards the lofty ceiling above. Beneath a picture frame with an empty canvas, he also found a small trunk of his things that his house-elf Tolly had packed and delivered at some point after his arrival at Grimmauld Place.
As he changed into his night clothes and crawled into one of the ornate beds, Charlie found his head swimming with thoughts of the Dark Lord. Voldemort, Tom Riddle, whoever he was. Had he been honest with himself, Charlie would have admitted that a part of him revelled at the memory of the conversation around the dining room table. He was himself just as intrigued by the mystery that surrounded the Dark Lord as anyone, but he, Charlie, now knew more of this shadowy figure than most. Whatever the children and pulp-fiction-obsessed housewives had heard in whispers, Charlie knew who the Dark Lord had once been, and who his current associates were. He could not suppress a smirk as he drifted off to sleep.
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Christmas dawned with the coming of a pale light outside the window in Charlie’s bedroom. A glance out at the street below revealed that the rain had turned to snow in the night and left a light dusting of white around Grimmauld Place. It was a welcome addition, brightening the grubby little square considerably.
Charlie threw off his blankets to find the room already pleasantly warm, for there was a lively fire chuckling in the grate across from his bed. Kreacher had also left a tray of tea and pastries warming on the mantle. Smiling, Charlie helped himself to a cup of tea and a scone and then set about dressing for the day. He had just finished pulling on a typically old-fashioned set of robes (emerald green for the occasion) and running a comb through his flyaway hair, when the empty picture frame above his trunk showed a flicker of movement. Charlie looked up to find the black-haired and goateed portrait of Phineas Nigellus staring out at him with something akin to amusement writ across his painted face.
“Hullo, Phinny!” Charlie chuckled, moving over to the portrait. “How’s the painted life treating you?”
The amusement briefly fell from Phineas’s pointed face as a dry look of long suffering replaced it. “Must you always call me that? It makes me sound like a pet. Names ending in an ee sound ought to be outlawed.”
“But Charlie is permissible?”
“No,” Phineas sighed dramatically. “I don’t know why you chose it. Your real name is far more distinguished.”
Charlie grinned. “Fair enough, but it’s also far better known. So how have you been, eh? Didn’t see you last night.”
“That’s because I wasn’t here,” Phineas stated flatly. “Dumbledore had another interesting meeting to attend.”
“Oh yes?”
“He has had many interesting meetings of late,” Phineas explained unhelpfully, failing to elaborate despite Charlie’s intent expression. “And even when they are not interesting, my fellow former headmasters and mistresses are most insistent about my attending Dumbledore even when he is in the midst of activities as gripping as perusing knitting patterns in Witch Weekly.”
Charlie smirked and did up the last button of his robes. “Fascinating, I’m sure. You must sorely miss Headmaster Dippet’s collection of singing candles by comparison then, though I recall you rather despised them at the time.”
Phineas cringed at the memory of another former headmaster’s strange quirks.
“But perhaps Dumbledore will knit you a pair of curtains, if you ask nicely,” Charlie continued, now gathering up a few lumpy parcels wrapped in bright paper. “That way you won’t have to watch him at his hobbies any longer.” He touched his hand to his bared head with a grin, as if doffing a cap to his late aunt’s father-in-law, then swept from the room.
Downstairs, Charlie found the drawing room had been transformed over night. The high-ceilinged room was a glow of red, green, gold and silver. An immense Christmas tree obscured two of the large windows in the room and gleamed with a perfectly spaced array of ornaments: bells that tinkled with tiny enchanted clappers, miniature wands that shot glittering sparks from their tips every few seconds, minute silver and gold brooms that took off from branches at intervals to whirl around the tree with a trail of gold smoke behind them, and small, silver-framed portraits of the Black family that included members who must surely have died several centuries previously. Atop the tree stood a figurine very like Merlin. It held in its outstretched arms the Black family crest and motto.
All around the room were garlands of gold and silver, and evergreen branches woven together that lent the sweet smell of Christmas to the air. A pile of expertly wrapped gifts, including what looked like two broom-shaped parcels, were stacked about the tree. The whole scene looked as if it could have been ordered out of a catalogue (and indeed, it probably had been).
Charlie found that Arcturus was already having breakfast in the dining room, as were Sirius and Regulus. Both boys, however, had a distracted air, as if they would much prefer to be ripping open the perfectly wrapped presents under the tree, and that the act of sitting at a formal breakfast had been forced upon them by their austere grandfather. They were soon joined by Orion and Walburga, who imitated Arcturus in breakfasting despite the impatient restlessness of their sons. Finally, a painstaking hour later, Arcturus gave his acquiescence that the gift opening could begin.
The broom-shaped parcels were indeed a pair of shiny new broomsticks for Sirius and Regulus, to replace the broomstick each boy had received the Christmas previous. They were new Nimbus 1001s. Some of the piles of presents were for the adults, such as an elaborate silver necklace that would never tarnish for Walburga and a bottle of Reddelph’s Red Firewhisky dating from 1887 for Charlie, but by far the bulk of the horde was for Sirius and Regulus. In addition to the new broomsticks, both boys unwrapped a set of sleek black dress robes, a handsome case for carrying quills and ink, a pure gold cauldron with an elaborate letter B inscribed on the side, and a stocking so full of sweets that even the Expandable Charm cast upon it was pushed to the limits.
Regulus also received a wand-cleaning kit in anticipation of his eleventh birthday in February, as well as a scrapbook with the Black coat of arms in silver on the front, a large gold locket with a picture of his parents in each window, and several other very fine gifts that appropriately boasted of his commitment to his family and pureblood status. Rather painfully, Sirius also received a number of presents that were no doubt intended to convey upon him the same commitment. It was with a strained smile that he unwrapped a set of crystal potions vials, a box of expensive stationery, and a golden ring set with an opaque green stone; all stamped with the Black family crest.
Indeed, Sirius’s favourite gifts likely came from Charlie, rather than his parents. For each boy, Charlie had brought a tiny figurine: a green snake that coiled and hissed around Regulus’s wrist, and a lion the size of Sirius’s hand that gave a minute roar and shook its mane.
“Let him be a boy, for Merlin’s sake,” he whispered to Walburga when she gave a disapproving frown in response to Sirius’s whoop of excitement.
To Regulus, Charlie also gave a small vial of green-grey liquid, which he explained to be a slightly altered brew of Polyjuice Potion. It would allow Regulus to change his form, but he would remain resolutely at his current four and a half feet tall, a miniature of anyone he chose to impersonate, yet the source of several hours entertainment nevertheless. Sirius, however, received a tiny vial of potion that was pure gold in colour.
“Never you mind, young Regulus,” Charlie laughingly chided Sirius’s younger brother when he began to pout. “When you start at Hogwarts, I’ll give you an hour’s worth of Felix Felicis too. But until you have exams you need help with or a girl you just can’t seem to properly ask out, I doubt you’ll be greatly in need of Felix’s aid.”
Doubtless before either boy wanted it to, the pile of presents was gone, replaced by a mass of brightly coloured paper that Kreacher was already cleaning up. Everyone sat admiring their gifts until noon, when the bell rang to admit Walburga’s parents, Pollux and Irma Black, and their remaining children and grandchildren. Charlie had always found Pollux and his wife to be less gracious towards him than Arcturus and his late wife Melania had been “ perhaps because Charlie was not in fact related to Pollux directly, making his connection to the Blacks seem more tenuous than it was “ but their children and grandchildren had always been rather like very young nieces and nephews to him and had enjoyed the rewards of his spoiling just as much as had Sirius and Regulus.
So Charlie was pleased to find himself seated between Walburga’s two youngest nieces, Narcissa and Andromeda, at the Christmas dinner table that afternoon. Bellatrix he could speak to later, for she was seated a number of chairs away from him at the moment. The dining room table had been expanded to accommodate the whole family, as had, it appeared, the dining room itself. As Kreacher served mountains of roast turkey, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cranberries and gravy, Charlie found himself happily engaged discussing the happenings at Hogwarts with Narcissa, who was in her sixth year there. When Andromeda could be stolen away from conversation with Sirius “ they were both something of the odd ducks in their families and thus quite close to one another “ she told Charlie how she had plans to travel Europe for a spell and perhaps even parts of Asia.
Finally, when everyone’s stomachs were full and all the crackers had been pulled (they contained real crowns instead of paper ones and were all stamped with a regal letter B, save for Charlie’s, which had a letter D), the family dispersed to change into their formal attire. Charlie returned to his room and switched out of his old-fashioned green robes in favour of a smart, dapper set of black dress robes, complete with the short, stiff wizard’s cap currently in style for formal wear. He threw a white scarf over his shoulders and conjured himself a black cane before descending the stairs once more.
In the entry hall he found the men all wearing the same attire as he, while the women had changed into elaborate red and green robes and donned furry little black hats that were then fashionable among the very rich. Sirius and Regulus were both dressed in their new dress robes. Hugging travelling cloaks about them and pulling on gloves, they filed out the front door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and into the square beyond, which was full dark and now blanketed thickly in snow. Charlie had just time to see Kreacher dutifully closing the door behind them before he and the Black family all turned on the spot and Disapparated.
When Charlie felt the suffocating pressure release, he was standing outside a most magnificent building. It was taller than the houses on Grimmauld Place by nearly double, and as white and shining as Grimmauld Place was grubby and dull. Light spilled from the windows that lined the round rotunda that created the central architectural feature of the building and witches and wizards in all manner of dress robes were filing up its wide marble stairs. Yet several Muggle passersby seemed hardly to notice the place. This was the Grande Operatus, the wizarding theatre. Inside, the place was buzzing with the upper crust of magical society. Tall, sweeping walls of white marble were covered in moving posters of a wintry landscape and a girl cloaked in red and wearing a crown of holly berries.
The Blacks naturally had a number of box seats from which to view the opera, such that Charlie found himself seated in one box with Arcturus, Pollux, Sirius, Regulus, Narcissa and Bellatrix. He made a point of seating himself near the rear of the box, next to Bellatrix. The lights dimmed and the stage became suddenly the inside of a home, dark and wood-panelled, with only the flicker of a single candle to lend light to the absent darkness. The performance was known as The Holly Wand, a magical Christmas classic, attended ritually by many wizarding families every festive season. The opera told the tale of a young girl who receives a holly wand on her eleventh birthday, which is Christmas Day. But lo, for she accidently enchants the playthings in her room, who steal her wand and flee to the Far North, where she must pursue them. With the aid of a mysterious stranger, she recovers her wand and her playthings become still again. At last, the mysterious stranger reveals himself as Amo of Sapiens, a mythical sorcerer said to give aid to children in need by bequeathing to them gifts of great power and meaning.
Charlie faithfully attended the opera as the girl received her holly wand and then brought her toys to life, but as the music rose with the tension of the theft of the girl’s holly wand, Charlie felt Bellatrix shift beside him and glanced at her, only to find her staring at him. “Bella?” he whispered.
“Uncle Charlie,” she whispered back, smiling. She pushed back a strand of black hair and continued to look at him from under heavily-lidded eyes. “My aunt tells me you wish to speak to me.”
Charlie grinned and nodded, now ignoring the activity on the stage below. “Indeed, little Bella. You have moved on from toy brooms and sweets, it seems. Your aunt tells me that you are in service to the Dark Lord now.”
“I am,” she nodded. She smirked as one of great privilege. “I am one of his most faithful servants. In his service, our world will once more be strong, and the strongest shall rule.”
“But he is as subject to the whims of lesser men as any,” Charlie whispered in return. “And the Ministry has begun to take an interest in him. You should tell him that. They barely scratch the surface, but let him be warned that the Ministry knows of his person at least, even if they mistake his purpose.”
“Tell me,” Bellatrix said, suddenly eager, her grey eyes wide. So Charlie told her, again relating in detail the events at The Three Broomsticks. By the end, she looked both disdainful and invigorated at the idea of Ministry interest in the Dark Lord.
“I will tell him,” she whispered. “Although, you may, as well.”
“Me?” Charlie said, glancing back at the stage as the music grew cold and uncertain, the young heroine following her stolen wand into the Far North.
Bellatrix nodded and leaned closer into Charlie. “You are not unknown to him, Uncle,” she murmured smoothly, as if aware of Charlie’s fondness for feeling himself privileged above others. Charlie found he did not care. “He believes that you may have useful information that will be of some benefit in his crusade. Or else that you will know how to find such information.”
“Then he is no fool, the Dark Lord,” Charlie returned, making no effort to downplay his own abilities. “I would happily provide such information as he requires. Let him name the place and time.”
Bellatrix nodded, satisfied, and crossed her hands over her lap, smirking. Charlie too fell back into silence and let the music of the opera below wash over him, though he was not listening. A roar of emotions leapt within him, despite the solemn, serious tone he had taken with Bellatrix, for he found his heart beating quickly at the thought of meeting at last the long spoken of Dark Lord. He did not realise that he was gently smiling until he noticed that Sirius and Regulus had both turned in their seats to search out the source of whispering behind them. Charlie waved at them to turn their eyes forward again. He took a breath and allowed his face to fall back into composed stillness, even as the music billowed below and brought with it a gust of wind and a mysterious stranger come to help the girl in red recover her holly wand.