Black Heir [R]
By Hawk

Summary: This is the Hawk-style version of the heavily overused Harry-gets-a-letter-from-dead-Sirius plotline and stuff happens due to this. Hopefully a good read in spite of this boring premise...

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hogwarts and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine.

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)
I can be found at iamhawk at yahoo dot com, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like.

Prologue:

Hello Harry.

You reading this, means that I've croaked and will now be spending my days pushing up the daisies, assuming there's anything left of me to bury or my corpse wasn't so horrifyingly mutilated that I had to be cremated. Life sucks and then you die, huh? Well, I hope that dying will at the very least be more interesting then being cooped up here at HQ for the rest of my life and that I sodded off in some spectacular manner rather then falling down a stair or something equally boring and mundane.

Sorry for bailing out and leaving you on your own like this, but I'm guessing that I had no choice in the matter. Or if I went as I've always wanted and imagined, dehydrated with heart-failure between the legs of a curvy witch after a marathon shagging session, that I had a choice but decided to risk it anyway. I always did imagine myself being older tho, but if you're reading this, I guess not since I plan on switching this letter out from time to time.

Anyway kiddo, since I've got few people other then Remus that I'm particularly close to, I figured that I might just as well leave most of my crap to you. You will no doubt be contacted by Gringotts before long for the fiscal matters. The Black family has a vault there and I've got one of my own as well that I arranged for after leaving home.

Mine doesn't contain much of anything that'll be of interest, besides money, which I'm guessing can be interesting enough on its own. But it also contains my prized collection of dirty magazines! I particularly recommend you to check out the Playwizard magazines from the first half of 1981. Great stuff! Since it's my own and I can do whatever I want with it, no problems there. Other then a few picture albums and some of my school things which will go to Remus, everything else to be found there is yours.

It's the Black family vault, that can cause problems and may be of more interest to you. Though it can also be a great threat, should it fall into wrong hands. You may have to resort to rather drastic measures to prevent this from happening. I have willed it to you, but there could be issues with that as others have claims that might be viewed then stronger then yours. I'm sorry for leaving you with such a horrid task, but let me assure you that allowing the Black family vault to fall into the wrong hands would be a monumental disaster.

Since you aren't born into the Black family, my will can and probably will be contested. Both Andromeda, Nymphadora, Narcissa and Bellatrix can claim that they should be the ones to get it. Bellatrix probably doesn't stand a chance of doing so, considering what she is. Showing up at the Wizengamot to contest the will, would likely be the death or at least capture of her. Andromeda and Nymphadora probably doesn't want more then I've already left them with in the first place, so no fear there either unless you've pissed these two lovely ladies off somehow.

Narcissa on the other hand married into the Malfoy family and Lucius still has considerable clout in our legal and political system, despite his semi-known status as a Death Eater. If he gets his hands on the vault through Narcissa, Voldemort will gain even more power that may well cause all to be lost. This is what you must strive to prevent at any cost. ANY cost.

To assist you in this, I've picked up two things from the vault and enclosed them with this letter.

One of them, is Narcissa Black's marriage contract. In article four of paragraph six, it clearly states that her marriage to Lucius Malfoy will become null and void should he be convicted for any major crime. As that would leave him inappropriate to provide her with continuous support, as well as slander her 'good' name, casting a shadow over the Black family as well ( as if one wasn't already there to begin with... ). Should he wind up in prison for anything greater then tax evasion, the marriage will be over and Narcissa will return to being a Black again. Any lawyer worth his or her salt can have this arranged for in less then a week.

The second thing, is Narcissa Black's Oath of Loyalty. A magical contract employed by certain full-blood families, including the Black family, to ensure the loyalty of those family members we marry into other families. It can be used to completely and utterly control the ones who have signed the contract, like Narcissa did before she married Malfoy. I was both surprised and disgusted to find it in the family vault, but I guess it could come in handy, so I refrained from destroying it.

Should Malfoy become convicted, you can use the marriage contract to have his marriage to Narcissa dissolved and use the Oath to ensure that she doesn't contest my will on her own. I doubt that she is a Death Eater herself, though her already strong sympathies for the cause may have grown even stronger from her long association with Lucius Malfoy. Should he be killed, or perhaps he already has been killed ( If I got a shot at him after writing this, I hope he's already out of the picture or I'll be seriously miffed that a ponce like that got away from me! ), you can use the Oath to keep her away from the vault as well. If he's still alive and at large, the Oath could be used to make Narcissa turn on Lucius and testify against him to get him convicted. She no doubts knows at the very least one thing that could be used to put him away for good.

I know that you probably find even the notion of doing this repulsive, as did I when I first conceived of the notion. Narcissa might not be the nicest of people out there, but she is my cousin and I still recall the little girl I played with when I was younger. I couldn't bring myself to use it, but I am hoping that you can although I deeply regret handing that responsibility over to you. Because trust me on this. whatever it takes to prevent the vault from falling into Voldemorts hands through Lucius, is more then worth it. If he gets his hands on the vault and the items therein, the struggle against him will be made all the more difficult, perhaps even putting him beyond your and the Orders reach permanently.

Other then this warning and the repulsive task I've unfortunately had to leave for you to deal with, I wish you the best of luck and pray that your life will be much happier then mine was. I have no sons or daughters ( that I know of ), but rest assured that I care just as much for you as if you had sprung from my own loins.

Love always, your fairy dogfather.

Sirius Black

PS!
You may want to drop by a store called Horncrow's in Knockturn Alley at some point, I've left something there for you to pick up.
DS!

Harry just sat in silence, staring quietly at the letter that had been left sticking inside the lid of his school trunk. He could feel the faint renemnants of magic on the paper, most likely some sort of notice-me-not-charm or other that had run out of magical juice by now, as he'd never seen the letter before when he opened his trunk.

He felt numb, removed from his emotions and feelings, though he was faintly aware of the fact that tears were trickling down his cheeks. /Sirius.../

It was strange, he figured, that he'd gotten so attached to his godfather.

They hadn't known each other for very long and their interactions had been brief and far between. But ever since Sirius had offered to take him away from the Dursley's, Sirius Black had become a person that Harry admired and cared for a great deal. But although he liked and probably even loved the man more then most for offering him the possibility of escaping the Dursley's forever, he found it hard to loose the detachment he felt.

He still felt faintly detached as he removed two rolls of parchment from the lid of the trunk that hadn't been visible before he spotted the letter. He unrolled one of them and found, as promised, a marriage contract for the union between Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy. It was long, incredibly detailed and was signed at the bottom by both Narcissa, Lucius and their respective parents, as well as sporting the wax seals of the family Black and family Malfoy.

The second roll, revealed the Oath of Loyalty for Narcissa Black, signed in blood and with a much more childish signature then Narcissa had used for her marriage contract. Judging from the date it was signed, he guessed that she had been very young when she signed it, probably before she even started Hogwarts. Harry felt absently horrified, still somewhat removed from his emotions, as he slowly read through the nasty document and wondered if she had even known what she was signing at the time she did it or if her parents had just put it in front of her and asked her to sign.

Because this was by far worse then any Imperious and he couldn't imagine any informed and reasonably sane person signing such a thing.

The scroll was incredibly long, but most of it was empty. The first part of it, was the Oath of Loyalty itself, detailing that the signee agreed to let herself or himself be bound by whatever instructions were written down in the empty space on the rest of the scroll. Whoever held the scroll, could control the actions, thoughts, emotions, body and basically the entirety of Narcissa Black, merely by writing something down.

If he wrote that Narcissa should die a slow and painful death, she would. If he wrote down that she should feel an irresistible craving for a Butterbeer at six o clock every Thursday evening, she'd have one every Thursday evening at six, unless physically prevented or otherwise unable to do so. If he wrote it down, she'd become a die-hard Chudley Cannons supporter for life. If he instructed her to, she'd strangle Draco in his sleep and then forget all about ever doing so. If he put it into writing, she'd loose her magical ability permanently.

The only instruction she'd ever been given through the OoL, was apparently 'Never betray the secrets of the Black family or official members in good standing thereof, no matter the situation or incentive.', as that was the only thing written after the OoL. While that didn't sound so bad at first glance, it was still removal of free will and the fact that someone so young had their free will taken away from them by their own family non the less, disgusted him something awful.

He wondered if the instruction would hold up to a session with Veritaserum in a court of law or not, before he shook his head and carefully rolled up the parchment again, putting it back into his trunk along with the marriage contract.

Instead he picked up the letter and read it over and over again, tears still emerging and slowly trailing down his cheeks.

Finally he found himself unable to keep on reading and moved over to the window, looking out over the yard, though the occasional tear still slowly trickled down his cheeks.

The End! ( For now... )