The Black Twins

Chapter 4

The same day, 2 hours before the twins escaped.

Malfoy Manor.

A typical aristocratic family sat at a large table, eating lunch after a shopping trip for the youngest member of the family.

- By the way, I met the Black twins today. - Draco decided to share with his parents. - They were so weird, they were always talking at the same time, and they were also saying something weird about dad doing something through their father's house elf, and can you imagine they were...

While Draco was selflessly telling about what had happened to him in Madam Malkin's studio, he did not notice how his parents' faces had changed. And if his naturally pale father had become whiter than chalk, then Narcissa Malfoy's face had literally turned red with anger. And her gaze directed at her husband could incinerate such a feeling.

"You seem to remember saying that you couldn't find any of Sirius and Regulus's children ," the woman began ingratiatingly, but there was so much threat in her voice that even Draco realized that something was wrong and fell silent.

- Cixi . I really didn't know about these twins, you know that I was looking for children through Kreacher, and remember how old Regulus was when he died , how could he have children at 17 years old.

- Kreacher. - Narcissa suddenly called, which made Lucius even more nervous and, glancing at his son, he jumped up.

- Draco, go to your room.

- But…

"Immediately, " the head of the family interrupted him with unusual severity.

- Why isn't he answering? - Narcissa frowned as a sullen Draco left the dining room, but still didn't hurry to return to the room, and instead decided to eavesdrop on his parents' conversation, hiding behind the door.

- Cixi, you remember how old he was, maybe he just died already. - Lucius suggested, at the same time hoping that he would be able to shift his wife's attention from the children to the house elf.

- Or someone forbade him to answer my call, - the woman answered sharply. - You will immediately use your connections and find these children, do you understand me?

Narcissa's gaze was so terrible that Lucius Malfoy remembered for the first time in many years that his sweet and obedient wife was a Black by birth and the last thing he wanted was to receive a curse from her.

Same day, Hogwarts.

Director's office.

Albus Dumbledore sat on his chair, which was more like a throne, and lost in his thoughts, he looked out the window. He was tall and looking at him, one immediately got the impression that he was very smart and wise, and his completely gray beard and hair hinted that he was very old.

"It will all begin soon," he muttered, knowing full well that Voldemort's revival was only a matter of time, which meant he needed to prepare the chosen one for what awaited him in the future.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of the front door slamming against the wall. Looking in, he saw Minerva McGonagall, who was not in the most cheerful mood.

- Albus , since when has it become normal for the duties performed by the deans of the faculties to be carried out by a simple forester?

- Calm down, Minerva. The boy needed a friend from our world, and Hagrid was better suited for this than anyone else, especially among the deans. - Dumbledore explained calmly.

- He could have found friends among the children. You knew I was bringing a pair of twins today.

- I knew, - the Director agreed. - But will they be able to become good friends to him?

There was a hint of sadness in the director's voice as he looked at the two names listed on his desk.

Vega Regulus Black

Vega Andromeda Black

- Albus , they are orphans, raised in an orphanage. They are untouched by the influence of the older generation of Blacks . They should not bear the shadow of their family's actions.

- You're right. - Dumbledore nodded, looking into the eyes of his deputy. - Let's see which faculty they'll end up in. After all, even Sirius Black helped us many before his betrayal, but don't forget to keep an eye on them.

- Good, - the professor agreed, before remembering. - Oh yeah, be careful about revealing secrets to Hagrid , during the time we were at the bank, he almost gave the children something that was supposed to be a secret several times.

- So Harry didn't see Hagrid take the Philosopher's Stone?

- Of course not, - McGonagall frowned. - Children shouldn't interfere with something like that.

- Good. - the director nodded, thinking that a small change would hardly affect anything, because the boy had already heard that Hagrid had been to Gringotts with a secret mission. However, what the reassured McGonagall did not know when leaving the office was that Hagrid had already reported to the Director before her and he had already heard about Regulus Black's fate, albeit without specifics.

- How strange fate is. He who sought the darkness chose the light at the end of the road, and he who held on to the light chose the darkness. - Dumbledore sighed, at how contradictory the Black brothers seemed.

***

The house at 12 Grimmauld Place was not as bad as we feared. Still, even though we ordered Kreacher to clean up the mess, it was too obvious that he had problems with his head, otherwise he would never have handed over more than a dozen of our brothers and sisters to the Malfoys . And yes, we were also shocked when we found out how many children Sirius had with ordinary girls and we sincerely hope that he was just such a playboy that he seduced girls of easy virtue in the club, and not something that makes us think that he deserved to be punished.

However, right now this is not nearly as important to us as the fact that we finally got the opportunity to use the Black library , and also how good the protection on this house is. Unlike the usual Fidelius , a modified version was imposed on our house, which took into account the possibility of betrayal, thanks to this, the heir or the head of the family only needed to come to the core of the protection and apply the ring, after which the Fidelius would restart, making the one who applied the ring the guardian.

And, frankly, we really admired whoever made the protection of the house on Grimmauld . After all, why was the Potter family destroyed? Because they could not make each other secret keepers, because the keeper cannot remain under this charm for long and this is the greatest weakness of the standard Fidelius . While with this modified version, if desired, the family can hide and not be afraid that they will ever be found. And, perhaps, if the past two generations of Black were smarter, this family would not have fallen into decline. And believe me, from the moment we settled here, we began to develop more and more contempt for our grandmother Walburga Black. This crazy old woman is a real extreme Muggle-hater . For her, any thing related to Muggles is considered a disgrace . What does she care who made our socks, a Muggle or a wizard?

In general, everything quickly came to the point that they managed to yell at us and threaten that they would have burned us off the tapestry in life, and we, in response, decided to act like Siris and hang velvet curtains over her portrait, after which she fell asleep. Kreacher was not particularly pleased with our decision, but he still resigned himself to it, because at that moment we were his masters, and also Regulus's children .

Now, back to the Black library . One thing is for sure, this library fully lives up to the reputation of the darkest family, not to mention that the "secrets of the darkest magic" are located next to the "detailed encyclopedia of cosmetic charms for all occasions." It is not surprising that our father, at seventeen, knew about something as specific as a Horcrux.

And I suppose it's no surprise that we've learned both of those books. So, theoretically, we know how to make a Horcrux, use Hellfire, and other little things, but to be honest, compared to the spells in the second book, all that dark magic was just useless to us.

Horcrux, only an idiot would do it. Even if in our past world there were several ways to achieve immortality and there were only not enough opportunities for implementation, then in combination with magic, you can completely avoid aging, which means until you are killed you will not die. True, if we were metamorphmagi , like our cousin Nymphadora Tonks , it would be so much easier. But even so, it's much better than crippling your soul.

But thanks to cosmetic magic, in the morning you can replace all your morning procedures with just a couple of waves of a wand, and in addition, do any hairstyle you want, which is especially important for my female half with her long hair.

Hellfire? This spell requires too much preparation just to start trying to practice it, and if you neglect even one point, especially the point with learning the counter-curse, you can go to the next world quite quickly, the only advantage, perhaps, is that the victim of such a flame will not even have time to feel pain.

While the counter-curse isn't really a problem, it's quite funny that the spell that allows you to suppress the fires of hell is taught in the second year of Hogwarts, namely Finite. Incantatem is a general counter-spell that allows you to remove most of the spells in a certain area, but if Hellfire rages, it will be difficult to suppress it with these counter-spells , and most likely impossible alone.

But in the book on cosmetic charms there were quite useful recipes aimed at helping us maintain our hard-earned athletic figure with the help of strengthening potions and light exercises. In this way, we will have to put much less effort into our physical training.

In general, despite the rarity and almost complete inaccessibility of the first book, in fact, it is not as useful for us as the second, which is most likely in the public domain.

And there were quite a few examples where books on dark magic, as if it were something ordinary, were located almost next to children's fairy tales, and this was quite disturbing, because there was no sorting.

- Mr. Regulus . They tried to call me again. - Kreacher approached my male half. Why Regulus ? Like many other English people, we have a so-called middle name and since we will really need to socialize at Hogwarts, it was decided that one of us would use it instead of the first, and we also began to try to act more independently more often, although this created a little discomfort, but it was still useful, especially when we trained in magical duels against each other.

- How persistent, - we frowned.

- Okay, Kreacher, you can answer her call, however, as soon as there is even the slightest hint that they are trying to lure you into a trap, to find out our secrets or something like that, you must immediately run away, that is an order.

- It will be done. - The house elf bowed and disappeared with a snap of his fingers. In the meantime, we returned to our mini-duel, in which we threw such quick spells as stunning and disarming at each other and trained to quickly block and dodge.

And since we're talking about magical duels, it's worth touching on the topic of magic wands. We were very skeptical about how they affect wizards, to the point that they are crutches, because of which they ultimately cannot use wandless magic, but here everything turned out to be a little different. In fact, a magic wand works as an amplifier. When magic passes through the magic core, it is additionally amplified by the magic of the body part of the magical creature, which makes the spells more powerful and, what is much more important, the wand develops along with the magician. The same effect, imprinting magic on the body, also occurs with a magic wand. In fact, these spells are imprinted in a magic wand many times faster and, as a result, the wand itself begins to help the wizard, thereby accelerating the learning process. For the same reason, compatibility with your wand is important. After all, only a well-compatible wand can help a wizard develop magic, while an incompatible one can ultimately slow down the process.

Naturally, all this is at the level of theory and we have no real evidence of the latter, in contrast to the significantly accelerated progress in spells.

On what spells did we test this progress? On the water summoning spell aguamenti for the brother and the frost spell glacius for the sister.

To be honest, this choice was made purely based on our aesthetic preferences. We always thought ice mages were cool, and water goes very well with freezing magic. We even tried a combination of these spells a couple of times, and after a water spell filled the entire room in an instant like a water cannon, one frost spell turned all that water into ice. This seems like a pretty good combination for a mass attack. And to assess how much the speed of mastering spells has increased, we brought these spells to a wandless level in this last month of summer, while before that it took us 5 years to master 6 spells, the difference is simply too big.

However, it is probably not worth blaming everything on getting a wand. It is not for nothing that the theory of magic mentioned the stabilization of magic at age 11. It is possible that this also significantly affected the acceleration of our progress. And although we have brought Glacius and Aguamenti to a level of no-plot, in fact, we still have a very long way to go in the real development of these spells - they can be used not only to create a puddle of water or release it in a stream or simply throw out frosty air. They can be more subtly controlled by creating water whips or even locking the enemy in a water prison in which he could simply suffocate, as Dumbledore did in the battle against Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic, as well as create a real blizzard that will instantly freeze everything that gets into its radius of action, and with the right combination, this will become excellent magic of mass destruction. And, of course, all this can be seasoned with an explosive spell in order to deliver a finishing blow to frozen opponents.

"Cotton"

The house elf interrupted us from training again.

Regulus asked the house elf ( From now on, I will mark the moments when only one of the twins speaks according to their middle name. Regulus for the brother, Andromeda for the sister, and simply "we" when speaking or acting simultaneously)

- Lady Malfoy requests a meeting with you on Platform 9¾. She assures you that she has nothing to do with her husband's actions and promises that you will not be in danger.

"I see ," we muttered thoughtfully.

- Okay, - we decided. - We will meet her, but only in front of witnesses and first we will meet Potter at King's Cross station as agreed.

"We should start getting ready," we thought, seeing the clock on the wall that it was almost 9:30. And the meeting with Potter was scheduled for 10:00.

"Kreacher, bring our things," Regulus ordered , while Andromeda was busy tidying us up with charms.

Within a minute we were completely ready.

- It's time. - We said decisively and the next moment Kreacher transferred us to an alley near the station, and from there we headed to the parking lot, where we waited for Potter, who didn't keep us waiting long.

Unlike what happened during our last meeting, looking at him, it was no longer possible to say that he was from a low-income family, but rather the opposite, his trousers, shirt, jacket and shoes looked very expensive and made of really excellent material. And what, perhaps, surprised us was the joy with which a rather plump man with a lush moustache saw him off.

No. It seemed to us not joy, but malice. This became especially clear when he, pointing to the numbers 9 and 10 at the station, suddenly laughed and began to return to the car.

It was clear that Harry was a little confused, but he quickly noticed us and hurried to meet us.

- Hello, - he greeted us with a smile on his face, he was clearly glad that he didn't have to look for where to go himself.

- Hello, - we answered at the same time, deciding to make it a little easier for him to communicate with us. - To make it easier for him to communicate with us, you can call...

- My name is Vega.

- And I'm Regulus .

We said it one after the other.

- Ah, um, okay, - the slightly confused boy nodded.

- Let's go, the passage to the platform is not far, - said Regulus .

- We do need to meet our cousin, so could you please reserve a compartment for us? - Andromeda added.

"Yeah, sure," Harry agreed easily before asking, "How do we get to the platform?"

- Do you see the second to last column supporting the roof up ahead? - Andromeda pointed ahead and waited for a nod before continuing. - This is actually a barrier separating platforms 9 and 10. Once we pass through it, we will get to the right platform.

"So…" Harry swallowed nervously. "You need to be able to walk through the wall?"

- Ha-ha, don't worry, you don't need to cast a spell, the barrier lets wizards through freely, and Muggles simply don't notice it. - We immediately understood the reason for his excitement.

- Phew , - the boy breathed a sigh of relief.

- Don't worry, you're unlikely to lag behind the majority, - we decided to calm Harry down a little.

"Most first-years don't know a single spell, and those who grew up in wizarding families are so used to magic that they consider it something ordinary and treat it no better than, for example, math in a regular school," Regulus explained to him.

- But this is magic, - Harry looked at us with distrust.

"If you can maintain this attitude towards magic, you might even become a powerful wizard," Andromeda said, before asking with a sly smile, "By the way, have you read the textbooks yet?"

- I couldn't, - Harry was upset. - They took everything from me, until yesterday.

- Oh. Well, the train will take 8 hours, so you can still make up for it. If you want, we can even show you a couple of spells. - We offered through Andromeda.

- Really? - Harry was pleasantly surprised.

Regulus nodded proudly .

- Do you remember when Malfoy tripped in the studio? - Andromeda asked conspiratorially.

- Really...

- Yeah, we've been learning magic since we were six, - we answered proudly.

- Cool, no one even suspected you! I wish I could do that. - Harry seemed to be imagining how he would make his cousin Dudley fall without anyone noticing.

- If you try, you can do much more, - we chuckled.

- And here is the passage, - said Regulus when we stopped in front of the necessary column and, interestingly enough, there was no one else nearby.

- Well, we'll go first, please don't forget to take a compartment. - Andromeda said and we boldly walked through the barrier one by one, a few seconds later Harry followed us, who, after admiring the surroundings for a bit, headed towards the train.

On the platform, despite the fact that there was still an hour before the train's departure, families of magicians seeing off their children had already begun to crowd around, and one family immediately caught our eye.

A little further away from the bustling wizards stood a mother and son couple, who were waiting for something, or rather, for someone. And they were most likely waiting for us. We recognized Malfoy Jr. right away, but Narcissa, frankly speaking, surprised us. Of course, we remembered that her image in the film was a complete fabrication. But this tall blonde with aristocratic pale skin and blue eyes was truly beautiful. And, perhaps, if we had stood next to her, we would have been much more likely to be mistaken for her children than even Draco.

- Kreacher, is that her? - we couldn't help but ask the house elf walking next to us under disguise.

"This noble lady is undoubtedly Narcissa Malfoy," a creaky voice answered us.

"Okay," we nodded and headed straight towards her.

- Good morning to you, Lady Malfoy. And to you, cousin. - We calmly greeted the mother and son pair, approaching them.

- Hello, children, - the woman smiled warmly at us, squeezing her son's shoulder.

"Hello," Malfoy greeted us reluctantly.

- Kreacher, cast a listening charm, - Regulus ordered , after which the air surrounding our company trembled for a moment, cutting off all extraneous noise.

- Kreacher said you wanted to meet us, - we said, not feeling an ounce of goodwill towards our cousin aunt.

- Yes, - nodded Narcissa. - I won't drag it out and say it straight. I want to take you under my wing.

- Ha-ha-ha. - We laughed as if we had heard a funny joke. - And you are a funny aunt. I wonder if you said the same thing to our brothers and sisters?

"You…" Malfoy poured out his feelings on our attitude, but he was stopped by his mother's hand, which squeezed even tighter.

"I only found out about the other children recently," Narcissa seemed to have put on an impenetrable ice mask on her face.

- Really? - Even an idiot would have noticed how much doubt there was in just this one short word spoken by Andromeda. - And where is your husband? Maybe he will also say that more than a dozen children are actually alive. And that each of them found their happiness in the Muggle world?

"He's at Mungo's ," the woman answered briefly, frowning slightly.

- Oh, what happened to him? - Regulus asked curiously .

- He was careless enough to touch an extremely dangerous cursed object. - After these words, Draco somehow cautiously became quiet.

- So that's how it is, - we muttered, looking into eyes as blue as ours, already partially guessing what had happened.

- Well, let us also speak frankly, - Regulus began . - After what happened, it is obvious that we will never be able to trust the Malfoys , and yet, as a sign of good faith, allow me to give you some advice. Stay away from Voldemort and his Death Eaters, otherwise this could be the end of the Malfoy family.

- I understand, - Narcissa sighed slightly disappointedly. - Good luck to you at school.

Having told us this, she and Draco went to the entrance of the train carriage.

- If we didn't know that it was impossible, we would seriously think that she was our mother. There are too many similarities in appearance.

- Master Orion would never violate the sanctity of marriage. - Kreacher's displeased voice immediately rang out.

- Yes, yes, great, - we waved him off and also headed towards the train.