Away now

[pure_nobility]

I feel differently about some things today. I don't mean better, I mean different. Redecorating helps. I never did like that chair, really. I was never able to put my finger on why I hated that chair but yesterday I realised that I've grown too tall for it. It's a child's chair, really. When I first came to Hogwarts it was too big but at some

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[thedogfather]

because they were my friends and they chose me. i chose them. i couldn't choose my family and wouldn't have if i could have. they were so hateful and so angry all the time. my mother loved to talk about other people as if she were better than them on a deeper level when she really wasn't. when it comes down to blood we're all the same. blood is just this red goopy stuff that keeps us alive. it doesn't make us who we are. we do that. and i chose my friends because they were happy they liked me for me and not because of my surname or even in spite of it. they didn't choose me because of who my parents were and what my parents would do for them or even because they were afraid of my parents. so i chose them for the same reasons.

i would have chosen regulus though. i think he had a chance but bellatrix got to him first. even narcissa isn't so terrible but she just got so caught up in all the shite my mother and her mother fed her about blood and gold and heirs that she just didn't know any better i don't think. and regulus just wanted somewhere to belong to and i wasn't a good enough brother for him so they got him. and he died and i'm sorry about that by the way. i'm sorry he died.

thank you for what you did for him. i heard about it.

[pure_nobility]

The family I know isn't hateful. My Mother loves me, and so does my Father. I don't think my Mother liked your Mother very much, though, so I guess there is that. But I still don't see how you could have left them completely like that. In a way I guess you never did leave completely though, because you probably were sentenced to Azkaban because you were a Black and that's what Blacks are like.

You act so dismissive of blood, but then you go so far as to say it keeps us alive. I would think that which keeps us alive is the most important thing of all.

My Mother was very good to him too, you know. And he still died.

Oh yeah. That.

[thedogfather]

they're not hateful to you but then what have you done to go against the things that they do? that's all i've ever done. i didn't hate muggles or muggleborn or call people mudbloods or feel proud about my own heritage. i didn't really care that i was a black and i still don't and my best friends are pretty much mostly muggleborn at this point and my lover is a half-blood. er and male which is sort of another thing that made me have to go very far away from my family. that was the catalyst actually if you want honesty. no heirs were going to come from me so suddenly my worth wasn't worth much anymore.

your right though. i couldn't leave my name behind and it followed me to azkaban. of course sirius black sold the potters to voldemort. his family were all dark wizards and wasn't his own brother a death eater? nevermind that they killed reg. he still was one. that was enough for crouch and the lot of them to chuck me into azkaban and forget about me. just another black gone. no big deal.

no one liked my mother. my father did not like my mother. they were afraid of her. never mistake fear for friendiness.

i know your mum was good to him. she was his best friend. if there's anything about her i could like her for it would be that she was good to him when he was still here. i never doubted for a second that she loved him. i think i was always a bit jealous that she could just do it and not care and that he seemed fond of her in return. i always had to fight for it with him.

that was brave. stupid but brave. same thing.

[pure_nobility]

Well, I guess that answers my next question, which was going to be 'what did you do to get your face blasted off the Black family tapestry'.

I've never wanted to go against my family. They are who I am, and to go against them would be to go against myself. That act of so-called bravery you mention, it was for the sake of my family. Surely you can see that.

Was Bellatrix afraid of your Mother? I don't see her being afraid of anyone.

[thedogfather]

yes i suppose that does answer the question. i fancied a half-blood werewolf and bellatrix told my mother and that was that.

what you did was also against your family you know. i don't think your stupid. i think you know exactly what your family is involved in and what you did went against that too. so you really can't be one thing or the other anymore. it isn't so easy.

bellatrix was terrified of mother. she would pretend not to be and sometimes use mother's temper to her advantage but the truth is that she was petrified of her. bellatrix is a coward at heart. madness and bravado doesn't make you brave it just makes you too stupid to see what you should be afraid of. which is why she is where she is.

and why i wound up where i was.

[pure_nobility]

But if in saving my family I had to go against them, sort of, then it doesn't really matter because I still saved my family. He could have killed my Mother. He'd already ki

Maybe to save something you have to hurt it sometimes. I don't know.

You seem to have just described yourself and Bellatrix as similar, which seems odd.

What was Azkaban like?

[thedogfather]

it's one thing to stand up for your family but to follow your family in whatever they do just because they're your family is different. there does come a point where you have to figure out where you stand because it's what you believe and not what they taught you to.

bellatrix and i were a lot alike. sometimes i think she's what would have happened to me if i hadn't left when i did. i don't know.

cold.

[pure_nobility]

I believe what they've taught me. I've no reason not to.

I suppose now that your magic is coming back you'll be fighting the good fight just as before, yes? Do you ever get tired of history repeating itself? Or do you look forward to the chance to change it?

[thedogfather]

someday you might.

i don't like watching people die because of who they are. i don't like watching people die for any reason really but that's a particularly stupid one. i'll fight for whatever lets us lead our lives without someone telling us what to do or how to think. it's complicated now because history's not only repeating itself but there's enough of us left here to see it starting again and we don't know if we ought to stop it or let it go on. i don't know. i don't know if i can change it. i don't know if i can change anything.

but i'll try at least.

[pure_nobility]

But people do die because of who they are. All the time. Some people, for instance, die because they are back-stabbing traitors who deserve it.

So yeah, I guess I can't fault you for wanting to go after the rat. On principal, I mean. I don't really care about what he did or anything.

I used to like history as a subject but now I think I might hate it. Nothing personal, Professor Binns, if you read this.

I don't know who it was who said it, probably a muggle, but that saying about 'those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it' seems very annoying right now. Because history repeats itself no matter what people learn.

[thedogfather]

there's a different between killing someone because of who they are and someone for what they've done. i know it makes me a hippocrite or however you spell that but i don't much care. i want revenge and i'll get it.

i know you know how that feels.

but at least if you look at what happened you might be more inclined to try and change it which is better than just letting it happen and thinking you can't change it. maybe you can't but you tried and that's worth something. i still believe that even after azkaban and being dead. or whatever the hell i was.

are we done here? i mean if you've got more questions go ahead but otherwise you can go if you want.

it wasn't bad.

[pure_nobility]

I do know how it feels. And the end result doesn't disappoint.

I suppose. It's just frustrating to think some things can't be changed. I almost broke my hand yesterday thinking about it if you want to know the truth. You probably don't. But at the same time I suspect it would be useless to go on being frustrated. There are always other things to be done. Like organising cauldrons.

I guess I'm done.

It could have been worse.

[thedogfather]

then let me ask you something.

what would you have done if you had got there?

[pure_nobility]

Any one of ten thousand possible things that I've thought of since then.

[thedogfather]

but you still tried.

[pure_nobility]

That reminds me of another saying that seems annoying right now. "It is better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all." Whoever wrote that was probably just trying to make himself or herself feel better about having failed a whole lot.