A Lesson For Sirius

A Lesson For Sirius

Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, where Sirius Black had quite involuntarily spent his childhood and far too much of his adolescence, was the seat of the London branch of the House of Black. His mother's branch. She was born Hera Black, sole heir of the London Blacks, and married Tiberius Black, second son of the Cornish Blacks. Tiberius's older brother, Cepheus Black, inherited their parents' large country estate in Cornwall, while Tiberius moved into the London townhouse of his wife's family.

Kreacher had grown up with Hera; his mother had cared for her when she was a baby, and when Kreacher himself was still quite young he was "given" to Hera by her parents as soon as she could talk. As Hermione would say, he was her personal slave. "You're my creature," lisped the toddler, as she wrote K-R-E-A-C-H-E-R with finger paint over his nest.

With her father busy with his work and her mother absorbed in parties, shopping and decorating, Hera was raised mainly by Kreacher. He became slavishly devoted to the little girl, endlessly reinforcing her childish imperiousness borne of overprivileged neglect. When Hera's parents left England to spend their old age in Salazar's fascist Portugal, they took Kreacher's older brother with them, leaving Tiberius and Hera with Kreacher and his aging mother.

Hera soon produced an heir, Sirius, and two years later another son, Regulus. If there was one Black trait Tiberius and Hera shared in common, it was an aversion to children, even one's own. So the two baby boys were tenderly raised by Kreacher's mother, who seemed sometimes as if she was compensating for the motherhood she never had.

One day when he was about five-and-a-half, Sirius awoke to a crash. "Useless house-elf!" came Hera's unmistakable screech. Following the sound of his mother's voice, Sirius ran downstairs in his pajamas to the dining room. There, he saw the furious figures of his parents and his mother's aunt Elladora standing around the dining table. The object of all three savage glowers was Kreacher's cowering mother, who had dropped the tray carrying the Blacks' morning tea.

"You know how the House of Black deals with house-elves who become too decrepit to perform even so simple a task as carrying their master's tea tray," Aunt Elladora said to Kreacher's mother.

"Y-yes, ma'am," squeaked the trembling house-elf.

"Well it's my house, so I suppose it's my responsibility to actually cut off the head of this worthless creature," said Hera.

"NO!" screamed Sirius. Four pairs of eyes immediately focused on the small boy standing at the threshold of the dining room doorway.

"What did you just say, boy?" asked Sirius's father.

"You can't kill her, you can't," cried Sirius. "She takes care of me and Regulus, she loves us, and I love her!"

"Love a house-elf?" asked Aunt Elladora. "Hera, is this boy a lunatic, or just an imbecile?"

"Listen, you stupid little fool," Hera snapped at her son, "whenever a house-elf gets so old it can't even carry a tea-tray, we cut its head off. It's a Black family tradition; Aunt Elladora started it when she was young."

"THEN I DON"T WANT TO BE A BLACK!" Sirius yelled. "YOU'RE ALL EVIL! I HATE YOU, I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"

"Master Sirius, no," cried Kreacher's mother. But no one was paying attention to her.

"How dare you speak to us like that, you insolent, ungrateful little wretch!" shrieked Hera. "You will respect your elders, you will uphold the Black family honor, and you will do as you are told!"

"Well, I can see he's better fed than taught," Aunt Elladora snorted.

"It's the house-elf," said Tiberius. "The old fool's been far too soft with him, I should have expected it. Well, enough of this rubbish. Hera, you deal with the house-elf, and I'll take this brat upstairs for some badly needed discipline." And with that he seized Sirius by the arm and dragged the struggling, yelling child to a small room on the top floor of the house. After locking the door, Tiberius turned Sirius around so that they were facing each other.

"Now listen here, boy," Tiberius said, using his left hand to give Sirius a shake while picking up an ebony hairbrush with his right hand, "because of the atrocious behavior you just exhibited, I am going to give you a good beating with this hairbrush. If you are ever disobedient or disrespectful again, you will be punished even more severely. Do I make myself clear?"

His voice choked with rage and sorrow, Sirius managed to nod. With a wave of his father's wand, Sirius found himself over Tiberius's lap, his own pajama trousers and underpants pulled down, and his father slamming the back of the hairbrush into his bare bottom. By the time his father was finished, Sirius's buttocks were bruised and he was howling uncontrollably. "Now that be a lesson to you," said Tiberius as he began to lead his fully clad son down the stairs.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Sirius saw the head of Kreacher's mother mounted on a plaque alongside those of her ancestors. Hera and Aunt Elladora were chatting in the parlor, and the decapitated house-elf was nowhere to be seen. Sirius went up to the nursery, where he found Kreacher and three-year-old Regulus. "They killed her!" Sirius cried at them. "Those horrible--evil--"

"Young master is not to speak of the Master and Mistress that way," said Kreacher.

"But Kreacher--your mother--"

"Kreacher's mother lived to serve the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Kreacher's mother cannot serve Master and Mistress, Kreacher's mother cannot live. But--" Kreacher beamed with joy--"Master and Mistress keep head of Kreacher's mother on Mistress's wall. Someday," the house-elf sighed dreamily, "Kreacher's head will be on Mistress's wall where it belongs."

Too shocked to respond to this, Sirius turned to his younger brother, saying, "Regulus--she's dead--"

"If Mummy and Daddy did it," piped Regulus, "then it must be right."

"Master Regulus is correct," said Kreacher approvingly. Turning to the elder boy, he said in a sterner tone, "Master Sirius might want to follow younger brother's example."

The whole dreadful experience of that day had been a lesson for Sirius, but not the lesson his father had intended.