Chapter 861: Hogwarts Study Panel, Chapter 372

Sirius stood before the tapestry, and Xiang Xien saw an lingering melancholy in his eyes.

"I haven't looked at this thing for several years.

This is Phineas Nigellus... my great-great-grandfather, do you see?

He was the most unpopular headmaster in Hogwarts history...

And Araminta Meliflua... my mother's cousin... tried to force through a Ministry of Magic decree to make hunting Muggles legal...

And my dear Aunt Elladora... she started the family tradition of cutting off house-elves' heads when they got too old to hold a tray...

Of course, whenever a somewhat decent person was produced in the family, they declared they were disowned."

Sirius narrated slowly, and Xiang Xien felt that every person in the Black family could probably be called a terrorist, even in the wizarding world.

Of course, this entire family was a terrorist group.

"The only exception is that I see my niece Tonks's family is not on it either.

By the way, Tonks, her mother Andromeda, was my favorite cousin.

Andromeda is not on it either, look—"

Sirius pointed to another charred little round spot between the names Bellatrix and Narcissa.

"Andromeda's sisters are all on it because they married lovely, respectable pure-blood wizards; only Andromeda married a Muggle-born—Ted Tonks, so—heh—"

Sirius made a shooting motion at the tapestry with his wand and laughed bitterly a few times.

And Xiang Xien's attention was drawn to a few names to the right of Andromeda's burn mark.

There, a double-stranded gold thread connected Narcissa Black to Lucius Malfoy, and then a single-stranded vertical gold thread connected from their names to Draco's name.

"You are looking at that... as you can see, pure-blood families all have kinship with each other."

Sirius said,

"If wizards only want their children to marry pure-bloods, their choices are very limited.

There are very few of us left. Molly and I are cousins by marriage, and Arthur is probably the great-grandson of my great-uncle.

But it is useless to look for them on this—if there is any family full of blood-traitors, it must be the Weasleys."

Xiang Xien then looked at the name to the left of Andromeda's burn mark:

Bellatrix Black, a double-stranded gold thread connecting it to Rodolphus Lestrange's name.

"As for these people, they were locked in Azkaban."

Sirius said briefly.

Xiang Xien looked at him silently.

"Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus went in with Barty Crouch Jr."

Sirius said in that blunt, stiff voice,

"Rodolphus's brother Rabastan was also with them."

Xiang Xien of course knew them; Bellatrix, Rodolphus, it was they who tortured Neville's parents into insanity.

"Everyone you see now has committed intolerably cruel acts."

Sirius laughed miserably,

"No one with a conscience could accept them; if there were, it was only because they lacked courage.

As you know, after I was sixteen, I left them completely.

In the summer of 1976, I ran away from home and came to James's house.

James's parents took me in and treated me like their own son.

Although I was disowned by the family because of this, and my name was magically destroyed from the family tree tapestry by my mother... but you cannot imagine how much James's thoughts, and the recognition and love his parents gave me, encouraged me.

For the first time in my life, I had a place to stay."

Sirius's face was full of excited flush, and his eyes were even brighter.

"Later, I destroyed everything..."

His tone turned abruptly.

"They say I betrayed James and Lily to the Dark Lord, and they are right.

I was as good as killing them... when they were being hunted by the Dark Lord, when they needed a wizard to serve as the Secret-Keeper for the Fidelius Charm...

I persuaded Lily and James at the last moment to switch to Peter, letting him instead of me be their Secret-Keeper...

On the night they met their end, I went to see if Peter was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, Peter was already gone, and there were no signs of a struggle there.

I felt something was wrong, got scared, and immediately went to James's house. When I saw the ruins of their house, saw their corpses..."

Sirius's eyes were moist, his voice choked, his face pale,

"It was I who harmed them, making them unable to wait for rest, but what about them?

I never saw them in my dreams again; why don't they haunt me?

The ghosts of victims clearly always haunt their killers." ===== CHAPTER 862 =====