Saving the Blacks

Chapter 39

Lord Black

I stand outside the training room as Carina helps Narcissa with a spell. The improvement in all the children's abilities is noticeable and while I still prefer to keep the children out of this, it did help to know if something ever happens, they will at least stand a fighting chance.

"She is doing well." Cassiopeia says coming to stand beside me.

"That she is."

"I want to start teaching her older spells. While her abilities are vast, most won't know the counters to those spells."

"While I can see merit in that, stress to her that she isn't to be teaching them to the other children. While Bellatrix could handle such things, I know the spells you hoard. I do not need any accidents with such things." I say, giving her a look. She had travelled to many different magical communities and brought back many spells that normally did horrible damage. I did not want to try to explain to a healer why a child was affected by such things.

"I can do that. Bellatrix should also learn. It is no secret that they are targets. I refuse to lose either of them."

I couldn't argue with that. She walks into the training room, and I head to my office. We have all been hard at work to grow the power of the alliance and while most who support us at the moment are smaller houses, their power adds up. Today we are sitting down with the Bones to hopefully pull them over. They are notoriously neutral and powerful. If we can convince Lord Bones we only want to do what is best for our world then I didn't see him having an issue with joining. The Rosiers have also mentioned sitting down with us. Hopefully with another dark sector house it will help with the rumors. The Potters and Prewetts haven't been spared the rumors from the light sector, and it is becoming an issue. Most of the time acting as if you didn't care about such things got people to move on, but I fear this will not be one of those times. Thankfully there are those who don't question our name. We have long held our spot and while people talked of us losing our hold, no one has taken the chance to truly try to take our place. We have a plan in place if they continue, but as of now, we have more important things to worry about. I can't keep pushing off getting the ring and then the issue of getting the last horcrux. Even after we have them all we can't just go attacking him. The last thing we need to be is labelled as the bad guys and have the ministry bearing down on us. We need the attacks to truly start before we can finish this.

Carina

I smile at the progress Narcissa has made. While I doubt she will ever be a fighter like Bellatrix, she will no longer be the woman who will allow people to walk all over her. I give her a hug before she heads out so I can begin my training with Cassiopeia. I still didn't like training with them around. While I am getting better at not losing myself, the risk is still there, and they wouldn't be able to defend themselves from a full-on attack.

It feels good to get some good training in and when Cassiopeia calls our lesson, I look at her confused. We usually spend at least a few hours training.

"I want to show you some older spells most do not remember." She says and I smile. I loved learning different spells and if they were no longer used often, it meant many wouldn't know them, giving me an advantage.

"Sounds good to me." I say excited to learn.

We spend the next hour going over different spells and while some were difficult to get the hang of, I am determined to learn all of them. When we finish, she warns me not to teach them to the others and I can understand the risks. When I walk out of the dueling room lord Black is waiting on me.

"Orion and Cassiopeia will be going with us to get the ring for added protection." He states and I nod. At least I knew they would be able to handle most of the defenses that were placed on the ring.