The next time I wake up. It's much different than before. I'm not even sure I'm completely me A new set to memories lie in my mind ones of an 8 year old boy named Ronan Black, For a single second I worry about if I had killed this kid maybe I'm some evil spirit taking hold of the kid but then I kind of review the memories and I can't completely explain why but I'm pretty sure that this is me. He is like an amnesiac version of me that's also a kid.
For a brief second, I think of the nature versus nurture debate in upbringing, realizing all at once I'd found the answer through reincarnation: the answer is both. The reason I think it's me is that even though there are definitely aspects of upbringing that affected me and gave me a different value system, and that made me act differently than I probably would have if I had the memories of my previous life. There was a basic similarity of thought process, memory retention, and decisions. I can feel that the process is not finished yet me and the memories are still syncing. As My head swirls I try to focus on the facts.
What do I Actually know?
I am Ronan Black Heir to the Black Family.
Where am I?
The Black Family estate.
What is the Black family?
The black family is an important Dark wizarding family.
As that thought runs through me my train of thought collapses walls of memory hit me i experience them as if they happened to me and in a way they did, Fill with lessons and training sessions and skill drilled into me by the black family I inherit rudimentary control over my magic from the ronan with no Past life memories.
In my memories, this kid was kind of a prick version of me. The value system that I had in my past life was disconnected from this one. With no access to my memories, I was just as susceptible as any child, and though the way I...he...we made decisions, our disposition, his thought process, and my personality were more or less the same (That's supposed to symbolize that he is still accepting the fact that they are the same person.)In the memories, because I had been susceptible to the moral value system, the nurture portion of nature versus nurture took effect.
My new family had a set of values that were vastly different from my past life. The Black family's was a strong believer in the importance of the bloodline, mostly because of the bloodline theory, and because of that the importance they placed in it child rearing was seen as nearly just as important to the magical community placed at the top of their value system, systematic education of magic and politics at a young age as well as etiqute, classes basics in occlumency, magical theory, and the basic use of family magical tools especially those meant for protection that was the standard for any high class magical family.
Even the most lackadaisical family followed those traditions, such as the potters and Longbottom's. Which is also where the term bloodtraiters comes from originally, though it got co-opted by the blood purist community, the meaning was for families that don't provide the basic training for their kids. The very poor magical families, such as the Weasleys and Prewitt's, which finally explains why Draco thought he was better than the Weasley family in the original story.
The Average darker families were a bit more strict with their children, along with the previously mentioned subjects, they were instructed in basic dark arts magical theory, legimancy, dark creature study, and etiquette.
Legimancy was usually just theory very few wizards were natural legmancy users maybe 1 every ten years or so. Though very few heirs and heiresses succeed in either before the age of 12 or 13, learning the theory at a young age, can help a wizard awaken it earlier, and those who do are praised as geniuses. The average heir has a rudimentary defense by the age of 16, the same age in wizarding culture when an heir can ascend to a lord and get their apparition license.
The black family was not your average dark Family that worshipped power; they went mad over it. It was what Voldemort used against them. So they raised their kids to be strong in some aspects, they were kind of like the Zoldyck family from hunter x hunter but unlike assassination, their main focus was the dark arts, the family had gathered the largest collection of dark art books in the world, every form of dark magic known to the world. In their pursuit, they did become the greatest dark family ever known, just as the Zoldycks were of assassination. Maybe parts of it were the historical aspect that the blacks were directly descended from Morgan le Fay, or maybe the number of dark lords throughout history who claimed lineage or the complete collection on knowledge the family had gathered over the past 1500 years, we had dusty tomes from the sorceror faction, we had egyptian scrolls on soul arts said to be bequeth by their gods, rune formations said to be from asgard, we had books on chimera experimenation, the use of Dark elemental magic, books on summoning demons, books on summoning ghosts, Spells for controlling vampires; even necromancy.
The Black library was the Black family's single most valuable asset for centuries, but it was also what drove them to ruin you see the black family library would insure that every heir and heiress reched a certain level of strength enough where no one could mess with them at the very least a black would ascend to a master rank for a standard family member and to truly have a vote in the family decisions grandmaster rank the last legendary rank black was over 240 years ago. But even with no legendary rank wizard for that long, the blacks had 2-3 grandmasters and half a dozen masters at a time, most big wizarding families were lucky to have one grandmaster in a generation and 2 masters. The average magical family has maybe one master rank in a This let the blacks grow arrogant while they needed allies against the entirety of the light faction; no single magical family was their match. This is what made the Blacks believe in the pure blood theory.
Their downfall had come in the form of that same library. Magical things happen in a place with such a concentration of Dark magic power and Dark knowledge bound together in the library. As the library was the blacks' single most precious asset, they spared no expense centuries ago to make it perfect with a ritual long lost. They awakened a will of its own in the library, just like the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. The library would choose what you needed if you walked in needing a cookbook it would float one to you if you needed a reference book to complete a spell to electrify your enemies, the library would give it to you. But when explaining what the blacks did to their library, you must explain how and the consequences of how they did it. There are six basic ways to cast a spell
1. Outward casting: moving magic immediately out for an immediate effect, whether wandless or using a wand or other focus to cast any charm, jinx, hex, curse, or counter curse. The pros are that the effect is immediate, and this is the most stable way to cast magic. The cons are that whatever you cast is temporary, and there is usually a way to reverse it. Whether a counter curse or just waiting it out.
2. Rune casting: Rune casting uses magical language, symbols, and imagery through rune script to hold magical energy, whether that energy is the magical energy of the user or of the ambient mana of a leyline or place of magical power. Much like fuinjutsu and coding, it saves a spell/command and then executes it with the stored energy. The pros are that you can execute spells you would have never been able to do by outward casting you can save up the magic energy, and achieve effects that you could never do on your own. The con is the time that is consumed learning runes, learning how to match up runic languages to get the effects that you want, and even then, the best runic formation can fail. However, most magical tools are made with runes. The standard runic tool works when the user's magic is supplying it, but runic tools made with alchemy, potions, and/or rituals can have effects that last a lot longer or continually store magic having effects that will last a lot longer especially if the items are tied to family magic
3. Mind's eye casting: Divination, scrying, Occulmency, Legimancy, the very apex of this branch of magic, the pensive. Astronomy is used to awaken the mind's eye.
4. Magic synchrony: Potions and Alchemy, and even herbology and magical creature rearing. In some ways, this isn't a way to cast magic by itself it goes hand in hand with both outward casting and runes, magic synchrony is like a short range ritual you send out your magic a continued flow of your magic unlike outward casting sending out an overwheling wave of power for a single spell, or runes storing magic for a delayed affect you consistently flow your magic in a set way to achieve an effect.
So, for potions, you consistently flow magic into the cauldron while you cook, which is its most stable form. The reason for this is that when cooking a potion, the potion acts like food; the smell of the potion makes you feel the specific emotion that you are trying to invoke, and that helps you focus to complete the potion. But the reason most people can't become amazing potioneers is that not every smell invokes the same emotion; either not enough of something to many turns on fire, or off the fire will give a different effect, and learning the ones that work for you is something that experimentation is required. Making it more of an art than an exact science. It is used in magical animal breeding and in herbology you sychronise your mana to another's magical signature in plants it promotes magical growth in animals it bonds you leading to a familar bond.
Alchemy is so uncommon because, by its nature, it is unpredictable as to create alchemic results you use magic synchrony and rune magic to consistently flow magic into runes to craft items that last longer and have stronger effects than standard runic formations.
5. Rituals: There are Four way to do rituals, There is nature based which is kind of like a druid ritual yearly say a few words pray to a few gods for power maybe you get lucky and you get a boost in magic controlling plants, or maybe even a boost in looks or longevity what they ask for is consistency and it doesn't work unless they like you, Demonic rituals you make a deal with a demonic entity for some of your magic money your soul they will deal with anybody and its always a losing deal, dimensional entity rituals which is what the entire Sorcerer faction is based off of, lastly are mana ritual that is where you make restrictions on yourself through a binding covenant with your magic but when you do that it can have disastrous effects. Voldemort's enhancements are made through this type of ritual as well as Grindelwald and Dumbledore boosts of power before Dumbledore got the Elder wand. part of it is is specific small rituals that have small gains like enhanced strength vitality magic power but also the entirety of The dark arts themselves are, in a way an effect of a ritual.
You see, to be a true dark wizard you need to be able to cast a dark spell such as Severus Snape's cutting charm without it being able to negatively affect you, and the only proven way to do that is to conduct a ritual that minds extremely strong negative emotions and memories to some of your mana creating a secondary form of energy in your body The new energy being Dark mana, and then bind it with regular no-attribute mana to cast a spell turning it into dark spells you can use regular mana for curses but it usually comes out pretty weak and effects dont last long but even the most simple curse with dark mana can last for days.
The reason that dark man a protects a wizard when casting a dark spell is that dark mana absorbs the smaller negative emotions that a wizard generates from casting a dark spell and so they protect the user from the backlash and achieve a 1+1= greater than 2 effect to the spell that's why the average dark wizard is more powerful than a standard wizard. Say a regular wizard can send a 100 pounds of force in a standard slicing charm, powerful could probably enough to slice someone without a shield charm but say you need to go through a door 100 pounds of force the average door can probably take 400- 600 pounds of force before caving in the average wizard it would take several casts or a more powerful spell but say they decided to use a dark cutting charm with no dark mana to protect them. As they are not true dark mages the spell would affect them if they only did it once maybe a mild headache but with each attempt it would get worse nightmares depression loss of magical control no control on emotions. Sooner or later them would become a shrived up version of themself wizards would lose vitality in the process and die pretty quickly witches could actually survive in that state turning into witch hags. They became creatures similar to vampires needing vitality from other sources to stay alive.
The more powerful you are, the more powerful you are the more the boosted effect of dark mana matters and its why dark wizards are more likely to reach legendary or mythical rank.TO become truly powerful in magic you must study all main forms. Dumbledore studied dark arts in his youth, Grindelwald, Voldemort, even rumors that the philosopher stone was made through messing with soul magic for Flamel. Even Harry from the original story a case could be said that the reason he was so powerful was he was getting a small dark boost from the horcrux which is why he could cast parcelmagic. Though it is true that the average dark wizard is stronger, a strong wizard is a strong wizard. A lazy dark wizard that knows a handful of spells could never face alastor moody or or some such legendary light wizard.
6. Enhancement magic: Not commonly used in everyday life, seen as brutish, the basics are taught by old families, but wizards are naturally as strong, fast, and durable as the average muggle. Flitwick is actually a grandmaster at enhancement magic which also contributed to his dueling championships; most under master rank struggle to use outward magic and simultaneously enhancement magic. Most well-respected wizards have at least basic understanding of it.
The specific ritual the blacks did for their library allowed the Library to become semisentient through a mixture of a long lost rituals and long lost runes it became something similar to the spirit of hogwarts but unlikethe hogwarts the personailties it absorbed from the house magic was laced in the madness and their obsession with power and their arrogance of the family magic of the black family along with the ambient dark magic from the books. It transformed it.
The Library became some thing of a trickster it did what you asked of course the black family magic loyalty was sown too deeply for it to outright betray its masters but say for example a member of the family asks for a dedicated training plan in a specific subject if the room liked you then you would get exactly that and details on specific books to have every single thing you needed to become successful in that subject. whether charms or legimancy or dark magic it was the ultimate training tool.
If the Library didn't like you however it wouldn't tell you right away you would recieve nearly the same training maybe even to the point where you can be considered powerful but then one day you'll get a recomended book on demon summoning with an incomplete explanation on safety proceedures.
Leading to why all the blacks usually die tragic deaths and also why The blacks hadn't had a legendary Mage in 240 years around 300 years ago a Marcus Delius Black the lord of the time was able to decifer a runic language on what he thought was natural ritual type with norse runes related to loki to improve illusion and transfiguration magic he was trying to find a way to tweak the ritual to boost metamophicmagic of the black family the room thought he just wanted to complte the ritual not expecting him to study it so seriously and when he did he found that it was a demonic magic summoning with very similar steps to the usual with demonic runes that closely match norse runes in appearance he knew ina second of clarity that the library had attempted to kill him.
He went on to set rules and limits to make sure it didn't happen again This slowed things down for every future black every ritual could only be commited if the Black in question triple checked every translation found the refrence books themselves so the blacks went from s a family that was capable of creating a legendary rank mage every other generation to at most 3 grandmasters and a couple dozen masters and even that slowly and slowly dropped by every generation losing any by supporting grindelwald by the time of voldemort they had two grandmages and maybe a dozen masters while very few blacks couldn't make it too a master rank a step up from the average adult wizard they had fallen far from the premminent voice of the magic world relyling on the allies they had forged in the dark factions to keep a voice of power. Because the family had fallen some members split off seeing alternative paths to power without the library the main branch stayed in england but family members pread all over the world some cutting off contacts completely others were like vassals of the family with magical contracts and treaties in place.
The process was kind of a ritual in itself see family magic is a byproduct of a ritual that is related to hestia the goddes of the hearth. So family magic is kind of like a campfire and every person in the family a log giving out heat and the excess heat aka excess mana is gathered and the passed on to the next generation. It's affects are hard to describe actions that have been done by your ancestors come easier spells take less time to practice affinity for different types of magic which also gave credence to pure blood theory.
When a family member leaves to start a new line its a good thing say you have a kid that is good in herbology he goes and starts a new magical family set around growing potioneering his new family magic is added in small part to yours the now there are two risks to creating a vassal line when a new vassal line is created the children of the creator inherits his talent and there is a slight chance they will gain a lesser version of the black bloodline through the connection of the vassal state relationship, thin enough that their would be no chance of inheriting metapmorph magic Though they may gain an extra affinity in dark magic. Second risk is that if every member of the family dies out the new inherit the family magic. so by having many vassal family's it eliminates most of the risk they'll murder your descendants to make their descendants more powerful because they don't know if the magic will go to them or another vassal.
Andromeda was an example of the start of a branch family not a vassal family as she technically didn't start a new family even though she was disinherited and married into the Tonks name as they didn't do the rituals to form a new family technically she was born into a branch Black family line instead of a becoming a vassel letting her unlock metamophic magic. There were maybe another dozen branch familes all around the world half changed their names in shame and half still hoping the family will rise again pursuing power in their own ways. The Blacks had dozens of vassal family's over the years about half of those lines died out over time off the left over half about a quarter had turned to the light faction after leaving similar to Sirius their was always the random white sheep in the black family.
The left over 3/4'd of the second half of vassal families were still allied with The blacks maybe 30 in totals, first I'd like to explain The main functions of family magic, there are three major ones.
First is the magic affinity boost it isn't much for a regular member of the family say it takes an average wizard with no bloodline or affinity 100 tries to learn a spell and say he can attempt to cast the spell 10 times a day it will take him ten days to learn it but say an average wizard with a strong bloodline and no vassal boosting him tries to learn it and it takes him 75 tries to learn a spell but he has double the mana of a regular wizard his age and the recovery rate of his mana is 25 percent stronger then an average wizard he can cast the spell 24 times a day it will take him a maximum of 4 days to learn the spell now. Now say you are wizard with a strong bloodline and vassal family with good magic control as crafter family letting you control and regenerate magic even a 5 percent increase would allow the individual to cast 26 times a day and master the spell in 3 days.
Second, is the protective angle in times of distress family magic has different effects for example the potter family magic has been observed to summon an army of spectral griffins to protect an heir these events are hard to manufacture a good example in the original story is family magic rebounding lord voldemorts killing curse.
Third, the most uncommon is linking an actual type of magic to your bloodline instead of an affinity such as metamophic magic, natural animagus talent, and parcelmagic. a dedicated wizard can accomplish affects similar to bloodline abilities through dedicated study or just be extremely luck like Ron Weasley at the end of the seventh movie. in some ways its impressive but usually bloodline abilities come with side effects since the magical abilities aren't learned those who awaken them have very little control compared if they learned them through dedicated study they would have a level of control over them but since with out the knowhow to control them they can be a harborance say a snake distracts a parceltoungue user during a battle or metamorphic magic user are naturally off balance because they don't know the exact equations to control the change in their body properly instead relying on the inherited skill from an ancestor's magic imbedded in their bloodline. Because they were considered flawed new magical familys stopped using the third function focusing on the affinity aspects to improve their families.
The black family considered themselves the only true success story of those expeirements they had advanced control techniques to correct any black family member who awaken metamorph magic got special training and training to that level or control of transfiguration magic to successfully shapeshift is near grandmaster rank so it was like given a grandmaster rank skill to a novice wizard even if they were a bit clumsy awakening that magic was an honor and the risks were minimal. The main rule of magic is there is usually always another way to get a specific result in magic like say you wanted to speak parcel tongue sure you could try to research it from scratch but that could take generations and you might never succeed but you could always make a ruinc tool that could speak to snakes. This is also a part of why the blacks were so arrogant.
Speaking of reasons why the blacks were arrogant even the vassal families under them were a constant source of pride of the 30 vassal families still affiliated with the blacks there were only 5 that weren't seeing steady returns. whether that came in the form of powerful allies, alliances and combatants, money, business's or access to unknown magical knowledge, The top 5 house vassals were the true gems of the Blacks going back hundreds of years families. The big thing about vassels it's not like you have full control over them technically they are their own family that is why the other families were allowed to cut off any connections to the main family so easily the ones who stayed were familys with an mutual interest relationship even if the bigger partner was th main black family.
The Everdeans, Not only did they kick back an impressive extra 15 percent affenity for rune magic but they had a natural intelligence that made them expert crafts men. Everything from blacksmiths to runesmith to making and fixing wards on magical estates, what the black's offered them are connections they could use to build better business's as well as start up money for storefronts as well asa dvertising those business. An interest of their shops was held by the blacks. They were our main revenue streams in the magical world. As well as the way to clean our money from money made from the dark families.
The Asclepius family that had an affinity with biomancy and healing magic who went on to have some of the most successful mediwitches and wizards in the world every magical health community in the world had seen An Asclepius. They also gave a level of influence good quiet influence that is uncommon for the black family Biomancy can be described as a dark art and in some ways the Asclepius is a dark family but they are also the best healers and the world healing far beyond what the common mediwitch can. The family offers good clean influence it directly counters the myth that all dark magic is bad. They are our right hands if the blacks ever needed to clean their act up and act in the light youd do so with an asclepious. sure most would be doctors the few that didn't become doctors became magical politians and lawyers.
The Huntsman family has monster reserves all over the world mainaining a stream of dark potion ingredients in the world heavy alliances in the underworld they did dealings with everyone from demons, vampires, Even the odd ecosteric muggle organization such as hydra, and the hand. we gave them limited knowledge of advanced dark subjects you can't find anywhere in the world as our greatest allies. They served as our hands in the dark, if you ever need to go deep into the dark you'd grab a huntsman. Our version of the root without Danzo trying to strangle the great Konaha/ Black family. Technically this is where the Blacks made most of their Magical money though that money would need to be cleaned through business with the Everdeans. they also worked with the Richter family when the Everdeens couldn't clean dirty money into Magical currency though they also had opinons on blood purity muggle currency was still important to them.
The Richter family the beaurectrats they made the lawyers, politians, accountants, and administrators etc, the most ravenclaw of our slytherin bunch they usually worked closely with the everdeans managing businesses or they went to the muggle world to manage businesses to the muggle world.Though there were definetely many wizards that had passed through the richter family most of The Black Family Squibs eventually joined the richter family. Many of the pureblood families were ashamed of their squibs and disowned their kids as soon as they found out they were a squib and the blacks were no different but there was a loop hole if a black wanted to keep them close if the join a vassal family and started a branch family as a squib they could still recieve support from the family through the vassal identity The lords of the richter family were one of the most outspoken against blood purity of the darker families they most definitely were still considered a dark family their affinity with the mind arts their main trait. They were never as close as the Huntsman family or the Asclepius Family because many of the Blacks carried a prejudice of muggles but thankfully the monetary gain of working with the blacks has kept them loyal. Just as the Huntsman helped them manage the dark factions
The Sornson Family was the most esoteric of the 5 closest subordinate families just like the Asclepius was close to the light faction, the Richter close to the Muggle faction, Hunstman helped manage the Dark faction, The Soren Family represented the blacks in the Sorcerer faction just like the Richter family there were many Squib's from all associated family in the Soren faction but they represented squibs that had not given on magic and sought it out through sorcery and chi and using dimensional energy to conduct magic.
The returns were the most powerful of the associated vassels at most the other families generated many 2 halfway loyal grand mages in a generation but the Soren family usually had a Grandmaster as lord and with a grandmaster rank spare with 2 grandmaster level sorcerer's a generation and every once in awhile they would produce a master ranked sorcerer like kalcilius and mordo which was equivalent of legendary rank mage such as Dumbledore though it would be close fight. They were a big part of why no one had tried to annihilate the Blacks even though it was clear they had fallen you never knew if the had a legendary rank wizard in their back pocket or some mythic rank demon deal to kill their enemies.
Though they had fallen they still managed to keep a voice of power with their associated vassals, and their wealth was still obscene, the knowledge was still in the library so there was still a path to power if you were born into the black family but now it was completely dependent on talent and hard work. Without the Library helping was kind of like being and Uchiha and only being able to get a three Tomoe sharingan its good you are a cut above other Shinobi but Dumbledore comes over and does some wood style shenanigans you are toast. Very few blacks were born with the aptitude to become a grand master/Jonin rank but even fewer were born with legendary rank/unlock the magnekyo sharingan, one thing the blacks still had going for them was that the last legendary mage said he found a way for the library to work for him a little bit of family lore he said the key was the same as the new family motto.
'toujurs pur'
Voldemort used the families decline to weasel in Voldemort was a Legendary rank and supposedly a genius in rituals. The blacks thought he was their hope to fix the Library for it to work for every black to go back to being the worlds most powerful magical family.
Every Black property was scattered with cursed objects and runic circles, so every young black in the world first started with mastering two charms, revealing charms and counter-cursing. It was probably why Sirius was such a good prankster. The upbringing of a black child was rife with trials and tests they trained their kids to always cast poison detection charms by randomly casting hex's and jinks through food. The very first pranks of the future marauder. The memories or the counter curse and revealing charms snap into place so does the arrogance of the blacks and the way I saw myself, A sense of responsibility to honor my families will and a belief that we were the best we were meant to be the gods of magic eternally pursuing excellence and perfection in whatever way I can. Though there was just the briefest echo from my past life's reasoning that let me see the arrogance in that belief.
Another burst of memories rush through me the painful synchronizing teaching me about this new world I've come to inhabit.
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I plan to write a chapter every other day or so I'm releasing the first 2 chapters on here and chapter 3 Will add on my patreon when I post chapter on Patreon I will post Chapter 3
ill try to add a chapter every time I post one I might take a break in a week or so after I get the first 5 chapter to add a few more chapters on my patreon and add advanced tiers but that only if people really like my story.