Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin

Chapter 21: Hogsmeade (pt 2)

December 23, 1971 (almost 23 years before)
Chevenoir (The Black Manor House)
The Private Study of Lord Arcturus Black
8:37 p.m.

Arcturus Black took another sip of port while listening to the gentle scratching of a quill against parchment and trying not to think too much about how Sirius's hand shook as the boy wrote. He had revealed the existence of the Anathema Codex to his grandson and Heir a week before and then set about instructing Sirius as to the spells, rituals, and other abominations within the book via the same teaching technique his own father had employed so many decades before: intense immersion. He'd spent every day over the last week reviewing one Codex entry after another with the boy, addressing both each entry's dark nature and the identification sigils that would let any properly instructed son of an Ancient and Noble House recognize a Codex manifestation and respond appropriately. So as not to overly frighten the child, Arcturus began with the spells which were merely included because they were deemed too impossible to safely control before moving on to those which intentionally invoked catastrophe and horror. Regrettably, he had exhausted the "easy" Codex entries and was now forced to move on to the stuff of nightmares.

As part of the training process, Arcturus required Sirius to copy each identification sigil a minimum of 100 times before moving on to the next entry to ensure that the relevant information would be permanently etched into the boy's mind, locked away from even the most attentive Legilimens but still a part of him forever. If the portentousness of the lessons was not enough, the very special quill that Sirius was presently using would be more than enough to make sure the message sank in.

"I'm finished with this one, Grandfather," Sirius said quietly. Arcturus summoned the parchment from his hand, reviewed it for a moment, and then cast it into the nearby fire.

"Good," he said. "Now, we move on to the final entry for this evening's consideration."

At a flick of Arcturus's wand, the pages of the Black copy of the Anathema Codes flipped rapidly. "This entry is somewhat unusual compared to those you have studied so far, Sirius, though of course everything in the Codex is unusual in some way. This particular entry is peculiar because it is not a spell, nor a ritual, nor a potion, nor a procedure for breeding unnatural beasts. It is naught but a single rune."

With another flick of the wand, a ghostly mist floated up from the book before stabilizing into the shape of a strange runic mark. Sirius frowned. Although he was only one term into his Hogwarts education, he was a clever child and was certainly aware of what conventional runes looked like. As he scrunched up his eyes to focus them, he thought the rune looked like a basic pentagram within a circle rotated slightly but with additional lines and arcs overlayed upon the pentagram at odd angles. Then, he looked away and shook his head to clear it. For some reason, the image hurt his eyes if he studied it for too long.

"This rune is of no recorded language known to magical or Muggle history. It is apparently meaningless ... at least to humans. The Codex does not name it – wisely, I suspect – but simply identifies it with a sobriquet: The Rune of Singular Hate. The authors hypothesized that it represents some concept incomprehensible to us that is understood by beings from the deepest parts of the Wild. By Those-Who-Wait-In-Darkness."

Sirius shuddered deeply at the cryptic reference to the strange and mythic beings believed to dwell beyond the confines of the universe itself. Arcturus continued.

"According to the Codex, the Rune has the strange and curious power to insinuate itself into other nearby rune schemes, altering their natures in unwholesome ways. Carve the rune onto a broom, and it will change the properties of that broom's enchantments. Draw it on a parchment near the ward line of a house, and it will alter the functioning of those wards and likely the character of the building they protect. In so doing, the Rune functions in a manner similar to Sowilo, but where that common Futhark rune simply invokes the raw magical power, the Rune of Singular Hate generates an even greater magical force somehow drawn from the uncontrollable frenzied anger triggered among those nearby as a side effect of the Rune's activation. This rage-state is pervasive and contagious, and its power and range grow the longer the effect lasts. The more people affected, the more powerful and sophisticated the spell the Rune can fuel. In many cases, using the Rune can inflict permanent homicidal madness among those affected. Once activated, the rage-state can only be ended by the total destruction of the corrupted ward scheme, usually through the annihilation of whatever item or place was corrupted. Legends say that in ancient times entire cities were once burned to the ground as a result of the madness engendered by a Rune that was left to grow and fester unchecked."