𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℙ𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕋𝕣𝕚𝕒𝕝𝕤 | 𝔻.𝕄.

༻﴾ Prologue ﴿༺

In the eleventh century, arrived a man to England from France...aboard a Norman ship in the foggy straights of Dover.

Armand Malfoy had masterfully abandoned his French heritage in seek of a new opportunity, one where he might re-write his family legacy, and allocate the grand fortune he'd always felt entitled to. 

There would never exist a future in which to confirm whether he'd simply invented a new name upon the voyage. Although, as his Parisian name would imply quite aptly, he was a 'Man of Bad Faith', and so it was likely unaltered afterall. 

Like everything they had ever owned, or ever would, the Malfoy's coveted their estate land in Wiltshire from it's prior owners without justification, shortly into the Norman Conquest of 1066 AD. Upon the face of it's rolling green hills and at the heart of a forest would be erected there a sinister monolithic mansion, seven stories of heavy brick and black magic.

In fact, so driven and devious was Armand, that he would have accomplished this insidious thievery, amongst many others, in a matter of years. His cunning trickery and heartless debate ran guised as the actions of a noble man with the best of intentions to supply structural support in a volatile society. 

In actuality, he was a very pretty plague which had crossed the open waters, an invasive species if one dared to whisper...

The first Malfoy to set foot in England wielded an unseen and unique degree of ambition within an era characterized by yearly personal baths, widespread illiteracy, and unregulated violence. Under the sun's rarest of rays the streets in London still burnt of urine, the waters in the Thames ran hot and black with disease, and all degree of religious madness motivated the muggle class who were vastly toothless, naive and out of control. 

However that was not the business of the magicals to correct, and so Armand focused his intellect underground and deep within the woods, in the bellies of bubbling cauldrons and in the sunken eye sockets of shrunken skulls. It was a plain enough goal: to poison a certain secretive sort with the unforgivable notion of blood supremacy. 

Sadly, with greater wealth had not come paradise - rather the reward had been greater paranoia of being liberated from such wealth. 

By the time the Norman Conquest had terminated, an obsession had rapidly formulated amongst those sat at the top of the new magical regime - obsessions with protecting what they had obtained through the control of who stood to inherit it upon their deaths. 

For even in death, so did greed and sovereignty strive to protract from decomposing fingers.

Armand's silvery tongue was ever found deep coiling within the ear of the latest King, feeding his royal majesty the gluttonous proposal of a council that might regulate the use of magic and protect it's sanctity, particularly from those deemed unworthy...from those imperfects in harmony with muggles, who must surely have been contributing to havoc and uncertainty in an already chaotic realm...

He meant to squash the smaller folk yet further down, leaving a few larger fish on the surface to enjoy more of the sunlight.

The name of Salazar Slytherin was dropped like shillings in a rug, as delicately as a feather so as not to rile up suspicion. It was interjected subtly into topics yet with the weight of an anchor below the tides. Decades after Salazar's passing rumination of his proud agenda was now for the living to describe without contest, iced and dipped in promising sprinkles.

As crystal clear as his piercing blue eyes, was the line in the sand that dear young Armand and several of his influential colleagues drew upon eventually fashioning themselves the Wizard's Council of the United Kingdom. 

It was to be them, the purebloods...versus any other excuse for a magical - halfbloods, mudbloods, and squibs alike.

'The Purity Trials' was the foremost abomination which came into fruition, trials to guarantee that order and standards were abetted, and that the clearest of blood continued to flow through their ancestral lines henceforth. 

Breeding of purebloods was to be kept carefully in check under the court's watchful gaze so they might pair their own offspring to the most suitable genetic opposition, they decided.

Soon the Sacred Twenty-Eight alliance was thus established in a panic, as magicals with status congregated in fear of being left behind in the revolution. 

However this tightknit society unfortunately brought with it the eventual disdain of notable inbreeding. 

And so, by the seventeenth century, invitations were put forth on a global scale, seeking foreign pureblood societies to broaden the available pool. Partial relief answered the call, yet in a twist of ironic fate, the protective pureblood folk had dwindled their own numbers considerably.

The Purity Trials were often conducted behind closed doors at a family's personal discretion, however governed by ancient magic nonetheless. 

Once a binding scroll had been signed by two consenting parties, it would perhaps be weeks if not months until a pairing had been determined legitimate. The longest running had lasted well over a year.

To complicate the process, there stood no set limit to how many trials a young noble suitor or debutante might have ongoing at once, often resulting in periods of high romantic tension during a coming of age.

Compartmentalized into five categories, any couple seeking confirmation of a pairing were to complete the following tests in tandem:

1. Trial of Origin (Best confirmed by the grandmothering witch): The easiest of the five, a trial in which the contending witch and wizard merely were to dispense a droplet of blood into a discerning goblet of aged wine, boiled with a crow's foot, to prove their pureblood lineage and disprove any near-distant relation. Both would then drink from the goblet. Should one have been unworthy, it would prove lethally poisonous.

2. Trial of Spirit (Best confirmed by the grandfathering wizard): A trial in which the contending witch and wizard would take upon the shapeshifting of an inhuman beast - whether it was through an Animagus transformation, a Patronus Charm, or some other magic termed eligible. Both resulting beasts must be compatible with the other.

3. Trial of Magic (Best confirmed by the fathering wizard): A trial in which the contending witch and wizard must face off in a conjoined jet stream. It was not uncommon for one to blow the other one to smithereens in the third trial, if talent and power were inequitable.

4. Trial of Descendance (Best confirmed by the mothering witch): The most costly to one's independence, the Trial of Descendance involved the courting pair to challenge their biological compatibility, through a successfully commenced pregnancy. 

5. Trial of Acceptance (Best confirmed by the Contesting Magicals): The Trial of Acceptance, once commenced, either terminated in a confirmed marriage by both parties, or the death of those rejected.

Five points merged together in the shape of an elaborate white pentagram, a symbol of the trials which could be spotted scalded into the floorboards belonging to dozens of pureblood families in time.

Of course, centuries after this Draconian societal creation was set in motion, the council would go forward to pass many arguably meaningful and seemingly innocuous motions, allowing for it's undisputed preservation in civilized society, if only by a tolerant grace...

Until in the eighteenth century when the Wizard's Council would finally be dismantled, and the British Ministry for Magic properly instated. 

Yet in it's fateful wake, the damaging influence of the Wizard's Council remained steadfastly ingrained.

Nearly one thousand years after his death, Armand's invaluable legacy breathed on with rattling lungs, through those secrets he wisely left behind upon his tombstone, hinting at the true nature of his morbid accomplishments and beliefs.

He would settle upon a rather predictable family motto to accompany the Malfoy empire he'd begun there in Wiltshire. Inscribed across their harrowing family shield, in a glittering silver banner, would forever read the words 'Sanctimonia Vincet Semper';

Purity Will Always Conquer.