Chapter 1. Descriptive.
"Phew..."
I exhaled and collapsed onto the floor, and literally a couple of seconds later Bella stepped out of the black smoke of a combat teleport right in front of me. And yes, teleport — because I have no intention of getting used to the idiotic term invented by English wizards. Around the world, this method of travel goes by many different names, and there are countries where it's called the same thing I'm used to. So I couldn't care less — I'm not going to twist my tongue for anyone.
"So then, son, you've run yourself dry again?"
"Mother..."
I heaved a heavy sigh.
"...let's not forget that I'm only nine years old. Yes, because of the Bugnier Effect — or in plain terms, a reincarnated soul — my core stabilized earlier than it does in other children, but even so, I've only been training for a year and a half."
I gave Mother a pointed look, not bothering to say the obvious. I'd brought it up once before, and my life had turned into hell for a full week afterward. I won't be making that mistake again.
"How many children, after just a year and a half of training, can do what I do — and in a non-primary discipline, at that?"
"Not many..."
Bella shook her head.
"...but you are a Black. The Heir of the House. You must be the best."
"And I will be. But today's training session is going to have to end, because I still need to get cleaned up before the magical medicine tutor arrives."
"Healer-Wizard."
Bella corrected me pedantically on the term.
"That's what I said."
"Yes, yes..."
Mother gave a slightly sly smile. In general, an outside observer — someone from my previous world who was familiar with the Harry Potter universe — would probably find it rather interesting to know how it came to be that I call Bella "Mother" and she trains me. And to explain that, I suppose I need to start from the very beginning.
So then: my mother, Narcissa Black, married Lucius Malfoy, then I was born, and my dear father took part in the pogroms and terrorist acts carried out by the Death Eaters. Everything would have played out just as it did in canon, if not for me and my reincarnated soul.
This sort of thing had happened in this world before — more than once, in fact — and it had even been studied to a reasonable degree. It was called the Bugnier Effect, named after the wizard who first managed to establish that souls from other worlds could be reborn here. And Narcissa, as a member of the ancient and noble House of Black — even if only by maiden name — knew about this effect. Moreover, the Blacks had a tradition of performing several rituals after a child's birth: both to identify a reincarnated soul and begin the child's education early, and to determine the nature of the child's gift.
My father ignored my birth entirely. From the memories that Mother had shown me at age five — once she was convinced I was mature enough — it was clear that he had told her: "Until he's five, he's yours to raise, because I don't have time to fuss over this little shit. After that, I'll make a proper Malfoy out of him." Mother hadn't appreciated that very much, but back then she couldn't yet do anything about it...
Then, after Tom died and Lucius retreated into a drunken stupor following his bribe to the Ministry, she calmly swapped out one of his hangover potions for a Black family brew. She had even graciously warned her husband that taking it alongside certain other things was lethal — but...
Lucius was not in any condition to listen at the time, and so he died of natural causes.
After that, Mother took matters into her own hands. She contacted Walburga and returned to the Black family fold, bringing the entire Malfoy fortune with her — the library, the artifacts, and much more. It was around that time that Grandmother and Mother learned about Tom's Horcruxes, and made the decision that the Black family would no longer support that madman.
From there, things began to unfold in an even more interesting fashion. Where Grandmother alone hadn't had the strength to be everywhere at once, together with Mother she could. Their first order of business was getting Bella out of prison. Her marriage to Rodolphus was dissolved on the grounds that he had failed to protect his wife — she had first lost an unborn child, and then ended up in Azkaban on top of it. And no, it wasn't a matter of magic; it was a properly drafted marriage contract, sealed with magic.
And yes, the attack on the Longbottoms was also contested and reframed as a blood vendetta for the unborn child. So Bella was released — though it did require greasing the palms of several officials — and after the dissolution of her marriage, a portion of Rodolphus's estate, which the goblins had refused to hand over to the Ministry despite all threats, was transferred to Aunt Bella as compensation. Unfortunately, Mother could no longer bear children herself, but that only meant I ended up with two mothers. And Mama Cissy had no objection to Bella becoming my second mother.
After that, the three Black ladies began searching for a way to free Sirius, though that proved somewhat more complicated. As a first step, a few bribed officials arranged for his transfer to the safer floors of Azkaban, and eventually his imprisonment itself was commuted — on grounds of "insufficient evidence" — to deportation.
All of this took place up until roughly my fifth birthday. And once I turned five, Grandmother performed all the necessary rituals to formally make me the Heir of the House of Black, while Sirius was struck even from the will entirely. He was left a small cottage in the south of France and a school vault that was topped up to fifty thousand Galleons — more than the average Auror could earn in ten years.
After that, the black sheep of the family was simply forgotten. They did promise him, however, that they would find Pettigrew and make him answer for what he'd done. And so it happened. Less than six months after Sirius left the country, the little rat was found and sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss.
What else is there to say about my life?
Well... neither of my mothers sat at home. Cissy had taken up a position as a Healer, having the necessary education and talent for it. She was now the Head Healer of one of the departments at St. Mungo's and earned quite well — though earning money wasn't really her goal. She simply didn't want to sit at home all day.
Bella had gone a different route and become a duelist, competing professionally in various tournaments. It brought her a very comfortable income, as well as fame.
Andromeda...
Relations with the third Black sister were strained. Same with her daughter, whom Ted — Andromeda's husband — had been diligently turning against us. But that was their choice, and after Andromeda refused to return to the family, we didn't push hard for contact. We still sent gifts on holidays and mailed courtesy letters.
And that brings us to the present situation. After performing the rituals following my birth, Mother had determined that my gift lay in the field of curse-breaking. A rare and sought-after gift — but beyond being rare, it was also exceptionally difficult to master, requiring constant practice and work with cursed objects.
At the same time, nobody wanted to let me anywhere near cursed objects or even people afflicted with curses without proper preparation. So my theoretical education was very broad, and once my core stabilized, my magical training became equally so.
Knowing that the reincarnated soul's effect made me mentally somewhat older than my peers — and seeing my passion for magic — my mothers had worked through the first three years of the Hogwarts curriculum with me in just six months. That had only been possible, of course, because I had already studied all of it in theory beforehand and simply needed to practice the spells from the textbooks.
I was, by the way, quite surprised when my mothers didn't bring me the ancient textbooks that some great-great-great-great-grandfather had studied from, but instead bought brand new ones recommended for prospective Hogwarts students. After I asked why, they explained...
It only seems as though the Hogwarts curriculum gets simpler over time — in reality, that isn't the case at all. Many of the spells that were taught in earlier eras have simply fallen out of use, and there's no point in studying them. The spells themselves also become more refined and optimized over time. That's all there is to it. Yes, certain subjects that were taught back in Dumbledore's day have since been removed from the curriculum, but that happened after the Second World War and was adopted worldwide. Only a handful of countries chose not to follow suit.
And for the record, Hogwarts was still considered the finest school in Britain — and there were ten of them in the country — and ranked in the top three schools in the world, after Russia's Koldotsvet and France's Beauxbatons. Though that ranking couldn't be considered fixed; if Koldotsvet held first place this year, Hogwarts might surge to the top the next, and then Beauxbatons the year after.
In any case, the school curriculum was taught to me using Hogwarts textbooks, while everything beyond the school syllabus was covered by private tutors.
All of it was conducted under the careful supervision of one of my mothers, the tutor himself, and monitoring artifacts that tracked my level of exhaustion — all to perfectly calibrate the workload and help my core and reserves grow.
Yes, in this world there are such concepts as the core and the reserve. And while the core is the core — the thing that generates magic, present in wizards, Squibs, and ordinary people alike, with the only difference being its size — the reserve is another matter entirely...
Ordinary people have no reserve at all. Squibs have one that is entirely "leaky," incapable of holding magical energy, whereas for wizards the reserve grows throughout their entire life — though only up to the age of twenty does it do so easily and quickly. After that, every percentage of growth has to be wrung out through grueling training.
Most ordinary wizards never think about any of this. A typical Ministry clerk or St. Mungo's orderly gets by just fine with the basic spells learned at Hogwarts, and casting them with a wand can be done hundreds of times a day — if not thousands.
It's a different story for Healers, Aurors, or those who have joined one of the magical guilds. There, specialized magic is required, and certain spells demand a reserve of considerable size.
In short, my development was progressing strictly according to plan — although I still wasn't being allowed anywhere near cursed objects. They only lectured me on theory: the various types of curses and the methods by which they are placed on objects and people.
In general, the goal was to prepare me so that in roughly six months to a year, I would perform my first curse removal on an object. A simple one, for now. A safe one.
"Son, you do remember that today you have not only the Healing-Wizard lesson, but also Potions?"
I grimaced slightly.
"The fellow you convinced to teach me makes about as good a Potions instructor as a... ahem..."
I winced a little.
"Severus is the youngest Potions Master in the last hundred—"
"Mom, I've already heard it — that he's the youngest Potions Master in the last hundred or so years. My point is that as far as I can tell, he was awarded that mastery not for any ability to teach, but for his scientific achievements. You do remember that there are two kinds of mastery? The first is granted for scientific achievement or for training more than three apprentices to the level of journeyman, and the second is for both. Well, in my opinion, he has never grown into the second kind of mastery and never will."
"He does teach at Hogwarts, for what it's worth..."
I grimaced again.
"Sure, he teaches... if you call it teaching. More like drilling it in by force. You know, he hasn't told me a single thing about potion-making that I couldn't have gotten from a textbook. And I can learn to brew from a textbook just fine without him."
"And what should he have told you?"
"Oh, I don't know — he could at least point out where to find information on ingredient compatibility, maybe suggest more elegant ways to prepare ingredients. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, the entire first year should have been devoted exclusively to chopping ingredients. But all he does is push practical work..."
I shook my head.
"Well, that's just his teaching style."
"Yes, yes..."
I nodded irritably.
"...but something tells me that in a few years, the Auror Office and St. Mungo's will be crying for help because they'll have a shortage of potion-makers."
"You think so?"
Bella looked at me with a measure of doubt.
"I'm fairly certain. He's clearly a little afraid of you, so he holds his nature in check when he's teaching me — but at Hogwarts..."
I heaved a heavy sigh.
"...there's nothing to restrain him there. He'll take it all out on the children in full, and as a result everyone will hate Potions. Only a handful of students — those who've already decided on a career and know they need the subject — will actually try to learn in his class."
"And what, in your opinion, should be done about it?"
"Well... in my view, the ideal solution would be to sack him and bring back Slughorn, but Dumbledore won't go for it. He needs his tame..."
Bella placed her hand on my head, and her nails pressed gently into my scalp.
"...in short, that man is very important to him. So he won't allow him to be removed from the school..."
Despite the fact that snake-tongue specialists brought in from India, along with several other experts, had helped Mother remove the Mark, she still reacted sharply to any mention of Death Eater Marks — which was exactly why I didn't finish that sentence. She wouldn't have held it against me, but she'd have scheduled a couple more sparring matches to teach me to watch my tongue, of that I had no doubt.
Getting her to turn away from serving Tom — and consequently finding and applying the method of removing the Mark — had only been possible after Mama Cissy and Grandmother Walburga told her about her beloved master's Horcruxes. After that, she had immediately refused to serve him any further. Well, more precisely — after it was confirmed that he had created more Horcruxes than the one permitted per century, which would have minimized the damage to his psyche and soul.
"...so in your position, I would start drawing up a plan to open a Potions course for those who actually want to pass their exams and go to work at the Auror Office or St. Mungo's."
"Hmm..."
Bella tapped the tip of her wand thoughtfully against her lips.
"...that's actually a good idea! We could try to bring Meda into it..."
I gave a quiet snort.
"Something you don't like about that?"
"No, it's not that..."
I shrugged.
"...it's more that I just don't understand. You've written Sirius out of your life entirely..."
At the mention of her cousin's name, Bella's expression tightened slightly.
"...but Meda and her family — you haven't. Why is that?"
"Because she regularly responds to the courtesy letters. They're essentially just hello, how are you, goodbye letters — but if you have no intention of cutting ties with the family completely, responding to those is mandatory. And Meda herself, based on small slips here and there, isn't opposed to returning to the family — it's Ted who's the issue..."
Bella shook her head.
"Well, Ted is easy enough to understand..."
Mother raised a questioning brow.
"Understand?"
"How many nasty things did Grandmother say to him? How many times did he reach out to her looking for help — even just to understand how to properly raise a Metamorphmagus child? Grandmother was so wounded that she shut their family out completely. It was only your combined efforts with Mama Cissy that eventually shifted her opinion and started the process of mending relations. But at this point, Ted himself has no use for it anymore."
"Tch..."
Bella winced, but didn't deny the truth of my words.
"...all right, we help them through Meda anyway. And as for your first question — Sirius simply, before the war was even over, when he walked out of the house, he spoke the formula of magical renunciation. Meaning he didn't lose the right to the name, but he can only become Head of the House now if there are no other heirs at all. And he never answered the courtesy letters — not then, and not now."
"Fair enough..."
I finally headed off to clean myself up, pausing in the doorway.
"...I love you. And make sure you beat everyone at the tournament tomorrow."
"As if there were any other possibility..."
She grinned at me in a way that made the outcome seem like a foregone conclusion, and with that I finally left the training hall.
MC is 9 years old.