ACT5CH16 - SANCTIFIED BY SIN

The door to the Lord’s Study opened with a sound like uncoiling chains. It wasn’t a door, not really. It was a seal. Binding magic etched in

The door to the Lord’s Study opened with a sound like uncoiling chains.

It wasn’t a door, not really. It was a seal. Binding magic etched into the very grain of the wood, woven into the threshold like a final challenge left behind by dead men. But Harry didn’t need a key. As the Lord, there was no door, no ward, no seal, that could stop him if he intended to cross it. 

He stepped inside.

The air was different here.

Old. Reverent. It was like stepping into the ribcage of something that had once been alive and divine, now ossified into memory. Shadows clung to the high-backed chairs and the towering hearth. The high arched ceiling with an exposed wooden beam gave the room an imposing and grandiose feel, with tall, leaded, glass windows letting in shafts of natural light, somewhat muted by heavy, velvet drapes embroidered with the Black Family Crest. Every book, scroll, and document was arranged with geometric precision. At the far end of the room, behind a desk carved from black wood polished to a mirror sheen, hung a portrait.

The man in it did not smile.

Arcturus Black had the kind of face that turned the word "stern" into a compliment. His robes were immaculate, trimmed with silver thread and a single blood-red jewel at the collar. His eyes were dark, alive with the kind of intelligence that didn’t tolerate questions.

They regarded Harry as if he were the heir to a catastrophe.

“You have come,” said the portrait.

Harry said nothing.

Arcturus's voice was sharp, but not cruel. “Harry Potter. The Peverell Vessel. When Sirius told me that he had broken the Family Charter and adopted you, I fathomed the possibility of this day. And you have, which means, my heir, the last of true Blacks is gone.”

“Gone, yes,” said Harry quietly. “But not dead.”

Arcturus arched an eyebrow. 

“Voldemort attempted to trap me inside a ritual circle connected to the Anima. So afraid he was of Death, he decided to consign me to an eternity of suffering instead. Sirius… used the Black Family Magic to bind himself to the Circle, and sacrifice himself to the Anima. I erased the circle shortly after.”

For a moment, none of them spoke. Finally, the ancient Lord Black sighed.

“Sirius, my heir, last of the true Blacks, lost to the Wilderness of the Anima,” he exhaled. “I suppose I should not be surprised. Us Blacks are doomed to a horrible fate. Very few of us find peace in death.”

“I said he was gone, not dead,” Harry repeated. “He is there. Somewhere on the other side. And I will bring him back.”

“A fool’s quest,” scoffed Arcturus. “Scarce few have the fortune to peer into the Anima and return with their souls intact. And you claim you can seek him in the Anima and bring him back?”

“Foolish perhaps,” said Harry quietly. “But fortune is finicky. Sometimes it smiles on the desperate.”

“It doesn’t explain how you stand in his shoes, Child of Peverell,” said the portrait imperiously. “Or how you wield that ring passed down my forefathers to my heir.”

Harry hesitated for a moment, wondering how much to reveal. On the one hand, what he’d say was something that he had entrusted onto very few. On the other hand, Arcturus Black had been the only one that had tried to protect his line from the Lar.

Even if it had ended in failure.

“This room is enchanted against all intrusions, young Lord,” said Arcturus. “Not even the House can listen in, about what is spoken here.”

“Even if it could before, it doesn’t. Not anymore.”

It was a vague statement that had little context to anyone listening in, but to the pair, it held a completely different meaning.

The portrait blinked. “You… know.”

Harry didn’t acknowledge him. “When Sirius found me trapped in the circle, he used the open connection to summon the Jaguar through me. Or rather, should I say… in me.”

The old man’s eyes went wide. “Was that it? Was the Jaguar erased by the power of the End like the Peverells claimed to master? Is that why —”

Harry shook his head. “Tezcatlipoca exists within me. Alongside Death.”

“How?”

“That’s… a long story,” said Harry. “But yes, as of some time ago, the Black Lar was destroyed. For good. Kreacher… is at peace.”

Arcturus looked flabbergasted for a few seconds, before he composed himself. “It seems the world can still surprise me yet. You say, you wield the Jaguar? Or does it wield you?”

Harry’s response to that was to materialize the jaguar’s spectral form, no larger than the normal size for the real animal.

“This… is a curious development indeed,” said the former Black Lord. “Unprecedented. It goes beyond every rule in the book, and yet, the results clearly speak for themselves. What can I do for you, young Lord?”

Harry shut his eyes, taking a moment to better phrase what he wanted. “Tezcatlipoca knows the Gate. Tezcatlipoca is the Gate. Tezcatlipoca is the key and guardian of the Gate. Past, Present, Future, all are one in Tezcatlipoca. He knows where the Dwellers-in-Darkness broke through of Old, and where They shall break through again. When They Rise, He will need nourishment, need Sacrifice, to hold the Gate strong! When They Rise, his need will be far greater.”

“How do you know that?” asked the portrait in a voice as cold as the grave.

“Kreacher repeated those very words to me verbatim before his demise,” said Harry. 

It was exactly what Tezcatlipoca himself had uttered earlier, but he conveniently omitted that little bit. 

“I can tell you this,” Harry continued. “The Wizarding World has changed. The Dark wizard Ekrizdis — yes, that one — attempted a twisted way to godhood, and tore the borders between our world and the Anima open. I used the power of Binding, Death….” he paused for a second, hesitating, “...and Summer, to seal it back, turn the site of impact into a Gate that holds the Anima back.”

Arcturus opened his mouth to speak, but closed it. And then again, and again, but every single time, he failed to express his inner frustration.

Never let it be said that Harry Potter was above frustrating people to no end, even if after their demise.

“That — you realise I have an entire vault of questions?”

Harry exhaled. “It’s a long story. One that I can regale you with later.”

“You spoke of a Gate.”

“Of Binding, yes. I hope we perfectly understand each other now?”

The portrait grimaced even harder. “This is a rather grim turn of events.”

Harry snorted. “Tell me about it. With the Lar gone, and the House in my command, I need every resource I can get to fully master this power before the Dwellers-In-Darkness come for us. I am hoping you can give that to me.”

Arcturus shook his head. “I’m afraid I won’t be as much help as you would expect. I was no Vessel. However, my father, the late Sirius Arcturus was one, and he delved deep into the Blackened Arts. I have no shame in confessing that even I was horrified to study his legacy, much less further it. Yes, I did some cursory studies on it, but only to further my own research to counter what he did.”

“Using divination, I presume?” Harry asked. “Kreacher said you were a Seer.”

“Not like Cassandra Trelawney, I was not,” said Arcturus, displaying a strange degree of humility Harry did not come to expect from the man. “Destiny is a myriad of endless possibilities, caused by accumulation of otherwise absolutely ordinary events happening at different places at different times with different entities, yet somehow their effects cumulated together to bring forth certain magical significant outcomes. A Seer was someone so sensitive to chronomancy, that they unwittingly captured glimpses of these ordinary events or factors, which uttered together in one long string, is interpreted as Prophecy.”

Arcturus met Harry’s eyes. “Compared to that, I suppose all I had was… selective… precognition, to varying degrees. It allowed me to, shall we say, see the outcome of certain events where I had meddled, so long as I had enough information to accurately determine the results. I attempted to use my gift to find the vulnerabilities of the Black Lar but… I believe it got to me before I could get there.”

He paused. “However, I do have something that just might be what you’re looking for.”

Arcturus’s painted hand rose slowly, his index finger extending with grave certainty toward the far-left side of the study.

“There,” he said. “Behind the bookshelf carved with the ouroboros sigil. Pull the tome titled Umbracanticles of Lost Yaw—and stand back. The shelf will open. Do not linger in the path.”

Harry approached the wall. The shelf was intricately carved with snakes devouring their own tails, ancient variants of the Black crest interwoven with esoteric runes. He found the book easily enough—it was bound in grey hide that looked almost… reptilian, the title etched in an oily ink that refused to catch the light. With a steady hand, he pulled.

The mechanism behind the wall sighed—a long, exhausted breath, like a vault giving up its last secret. The shelf glided aside with silent reverence, revealing a hidden niche.

It wasn’t large. Just enough space for a black altar no larger than a writing desk, carved from a single slab of volcanic obsidian. The air around it felt heavier. The kind of gravity that made your soul feel pulled toward the stone.

Resting atop the altar, sealed beneath a transparent dome of enchanted crystal, was a book.

The front was solid black, as if it had been painted with a shadow that never dried. Only when Harry leaned close did he realize it was engraved—not in gold or silver, but in what looked like shimmering darklight, flickering like a dying star. And on it, was written —

THE OBSIDIAN TESTAMENT

Harry reached forward. The crystal dome melted away at his touch, folding like steam. He picked up the tome. The leather cover pulsed faintly under his palm, like the heartbeat of something long-dead remembering how to breathe.

Behind him, Arcturus spoke again.

“My father was the one who led the last great Binding of Tezcatlipoca after the Fall of Tenochtitlan. That book is no journal. It is a confession. A declaration of purpose. And a map to what came before.”

Harry opened the first page.

Black ink—if it was ink—coiled across the page in living lines, arranging themselves into letters he could read only because the ring on his hand whispered the meaning into his thoughts. It began not with a title, but a curse — 

“Let the traitor who reads these words without true Blackblood be devoured by the Binding they pretend to command.”

Harry’s blood accepted the warning, and the curse slithered away like a retreating shadow. And inside were… secrets.

The Pact of Hollowmere.

The Debt of Anchors.

The Eightfold Compact.

The Binding of Rites.

The Harvest.

The Grand Design.

And on and on.

It was more than a book. It was the Black family’s true history, the one that never made it into Hogwarts records or Ministry ledgers.

Harry let out a slow breath, and read the phrase he had repeated back at the Wizengamot.

“The Bloodborne, the Protected, the Saved, the Cursed…

The Marked, the Swayed, the Tools and the Fools…

Listen to my call. My order. My command. My prayer. My will is the Will of the House of Black. Toujours Pur, for I am Harry, the Lord of Black.”

The moment the words left his lips, the world seemed to change.

The house responded.

Harry felt it through the soles of his boots first—a pulse, low and primal, as though the very foundation stones were taking a breath for the first time in centuries. The ancestral Binding of House Black, ancient and sealed by names long dead, had heard his oath. And more than that—it had accepted.

Something in the bones of the house groaned.

The chandelier above him flickered violently before stabilizing. Runes hidden in the wood paneling glowed a deep crimson, only to bleed into gold. Walls breathed. Portraits rattled in their frames, though none dared speak.

Then came the sound—metal unspooling, chains slithering, locks failing.

Harry turned his head just in time to see a door materialize to his right, and swing open, revealing a multitude of thick shelves, each of them filled with books.

Inside, dust lifted in elegant spirals from the floor like incense rising from an altar. Heavy tomes rearranged themselves on ancient shelves, some turning of their own accord to face him. Scrolls that had been locked for centuries now floated free of their containers, held aloft by invisible forces before returning to their slots, now ready. Waiting.

The Library was alive.

The shelves had changed.

Glyphs along the spine of the central archive flickered with light he couldn’t see so much as feel—Bindings that hadn’t stirred since the days of the First Pact. Sigils long denied. Curses wrapped like silken thread around knowledge no human was ever meant to wield.

Harry stepped inside.

The air turned cold—not frigid, but clarifying, like wind at the summit of a mountain. The magic here was not the comfortable hum of Hogwarts, nor the chaotic pull of the Gate. This was power held still—not dormant, but leashed.

His shadow stretched in all directions at once, skittering across parchment and glass and etched stone tablets. He passed rows of grimoires too dangerous for public memory —bound in dragon-hide, stitched with human skin, clasped shut by runes written in blood.

But none of them stirred.

They had recognized him.

At the very heart of the library, an altar stood. Black stone, mirror-smooth, shaped like an open book. Upon it burned a single flame. Not fire, not quite. Something stranger. Pale blue at the center, black at the edges—like a candle made from memory.

And behind it—above it—engraved into the rear wall like a truth written into bone —

The Jaguar knows the Gate. 

The Jaguar is the Gate.

The Jaguar is the Key and Guardian to the Gate.

And suddenly, Harry knew what he was looking at.

The Obsidian Mirror.

This was where it all started.

The founding of the Blackened Ones.

The creation of the Lar.

The subsuming of House Black.

The Harvest.

Harry put his hand on the mirror, and words he had not thought of came to his lips.

“I know the Gate.

I am the Gate.

I am the Key and Guardian of the Gate.

I have seen those that Dwell in Darkness,

And I know how they tread, and how they shall tread again,

And when They rise again, as they shall,

As Gatekeeper, Gardener and Harbinger,

I will bring about their End.”

....

....

The antechamber beyond the Black Library was still humming with the aftershock of magic. The vow had been spoken. The House had accepted it. And the silence that followed was thick with something older than words—recognition, perhaps, or awe. The scent of old magic hung thick in the air—ash, salt, something like burnt myrrh. The Obsidian Testament weighed heavy in his satchel, though it pulsed no more. Its secrets had been revealed. Its judgments passed.

Harry stepped into that silence and found Daphne waiting. She stood tall, though her fingers were curled tightly at her sides. Her eyes were locked on his—searching, questioning, hopeful. Beside her, looking smaller than ever, with his perked ears and rotund eyes, was Dobby.

“All sorted out, Lord Black?” she asked.

Translation — was he alright, and could they just leave this place for good?

"It is done," he said quietly. "House Black is no longer a house of rot. It has a new purpose now.”

“I’m guessing Arcturus Black had some choice words to say,” said Daphne.

Harry snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. The Lar is gone, but it already took every last one of the true Blacks with it. A pyrrhic victory at best. And now, House Black has lost its secret power, its lingering influence, the dark shadows that it exerted over the other Dark Houses…. It’s all gone. Pretty sure any of the portraits here would murder me horribly if they could.”

He wondered if Phineas Nigellus Black, whose portrait hung in the Headmaster’s office, had witnessed it all. 

He wondered if that was why Dumbledore had sent Dobby here to find him.

Daphne snorted. “Nothing new then.”

Exhaling, he rested with his back against the wall, doing his best to ignore the searing headache that was threatening to overwhelm him. Ever since he had cast the Fidelius charm, life had thrown him on a magical rollercoaster the kind of which he hadn’t believed was possible. Pulling the Jaguar out of the Wizengamot; resisting it;  facing the Lar; the truth behind house elves, and finally, unveiling the Obsidian Mirror and seeing it for what it was just one fucked-up thing after another. Honestly, that his head had not exploded from the deluges of information and overwhelming exposure to power was a miracle in itself.

“Harry?”

He shook his head, perplexed. So much had happened that he wasn’t sure where to start, and said as much.

“Okay,” said Daphne. “Why don’t you start with the most important thing first and then we work  our way down?”

Harry nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “I don’t think Sirius voluntarily sacrificed himself.”

The witch stared at him with widening eyes. “He… what? Harry, you told me he sacrificed himself to protect you. You showed us the freaking memory.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t do it to protect me,” said Harry defensively. “I’m just saying that there were ulterior motives behind it. Motives that weren’t Sirius’s own to begin with.”

“Harry, you’re confusing me now.”

The newest Lord Black sighed, pondered for a moment as to what he should do or say.

“The origin of the Black Binding comes from the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca. After the original clan was defeated by the priests of Quetzalcoatl, they were exiled. They sailed across the sea, known as the Blackened Ones, and found shelter in Britain, which was then  divided among clans. In exchange for several compacts with the other clans, the Blackened Ones, now called House Black, became part of the Miraculum Operarius, swearing to be the fabric that bound the clans together.”

“So when Binding was ripped away, it snapped all existing pacts,” Daphne reasoned. “All that’s holding the Wizengamot together is what… a gentleman’s agreement of sorts?”

“Right answer, wrong target, Daphne,” Harry chided. “I didn’t say Wizengamot, did I?”

“But you said the Miracu—” she trailed off, as it hit her like a truck, and she widened her eyes in surprise. “The magical pacts held together by the Miraculum Operarius.”

Harry nodded. The Miraculum Operarius — that which grants miracles. When bound together politically through the fabric of Black binding, it could craft a magical nation. But spiritually?

Magic warped Reality. The world was shaped by perception, thought, emotions and beliefs. A single grain of sand on the beach was inconsequential, but collect enough of them to build a moon, and it could cause tides in the ocean. Individual witches and wizards were like those tiny grains of sand. The Operarius? It was the moon.

And Binding was the damned glue holding them together.

It was the same principle upon which Ekrizdis had constructed his philosophy of Animus Eternum. It was what allowed the Wizengamot to function the way it did.

It was also what allowed wizardkind to hold Reality together and ensure that forces of the Outside stayed on the other side.

“But Harry, that means that without Binding, the world will —”

“Fall Apart? Maybe. The edges of Reality start fraying? Definitely. Rogue powers of the Anima will slip through into our world, causing more magical anomalies within Wizarding Britain? You bet your wand on it.”

Daphne exhaled. “Which means House Black needs to return to the Wizengamot. Become a part of the Operarius once again. Which is… probably why Dumbledore sent Dobby to you. But Harry — what has that got to do with Sirius?”

“Everything,” said Harry. He raised his wand, and summoned a large drawing board from the duelling room. Sirius had often used it to explain duelling tactics during their classes. He waved his wand, and writing began to appear on it.

XOLOTL BLACK

ALTAIR MARIUS BLACK

SIRIUS ARCTURUS BLACK

ARCTURUS SIRIUS BLACK

SIRIUS ORION BLACK

“Why isn’t Orion Black on the list? He was Sirius’s father, wasn’t he?”

“Acting-Lord. Arcturus held the real power, and named Sirius as heir. Orion was… incidental.”

Harry tapped the first name.

“Xolotl. The Black who mattered most. He laid the foundation stones. Forged the Pact of Hollowmere. Brought the Binding to Albion. Opened the Obsidian Mirror. And manifested the Lar.”

Tap.

“Altair Marius. Held the Feast of the Forgotten. Three years of decadence. Ended with a ritual sacrifice on the Jaguar’s Altar. The victim’s name and history were erased. No memory. No trace. Like a prototype Fidelius Curse—but older. Meaner.”

“Fascinating,” drawled Daphne. “But I don’t see what the relationship between them is, other than being Lords of the House.”

“I doubt you would,” said Harry. “It’s not an insult. You simply don’t know as much about it as I do. In fact, barely half an hour ago, I didn’t know it.”

Tap.

“Sirius Arcturus Black. Created the Sacrament of Echoed Flesh. Bound the Lar into Kreacher.”

A silence.

Tap.

“Arcturus Sirius. Shut down the Feast. Defied the Lar. In response, the Harvest began.”

Daphne’s voice was soft. “And it began killing the family to fulfill its sacrifice quota.”

Tap.

“Sirius Orion. The fool who opened the ritual at St. Mungo’s and—without knowing—invoked Tezcatlipoca into me.”

A final name etched itself into the board like a curse.

HARRY POTTER

Daphne stepped back involuntarily.

Harry met her gaze, unblinking. “Manifested Tezcatlipoca’s power. Used the Animus Eternum to fashion a—”

“Gate,” Daphne finished, voice hoarse.

She didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“Andi told me Sirius studied the Library obsessively after inheriting the title. That he said it was to protect me. And that when he found the opportunity to act… he made me the Vessel. He summoned the Jaguar through me.”

Daphne’s voice cracked. “So you’re—what? You’re saying Sirius was corrupted?”

“No. I’m saying he was chosen. Long before he ever had a choice.”

He waved his wand. New words began forming beside the names.

HOUSE → LAR → ELF → SELF → INVOCATION → GATE

Daphne stared at the final word. Her fingers curled tight against her sides, knuckles white.

“You can’t mean — the Azkaban Gate?”

“Can you think of anything else that mans the boundaries of this world?”

“But you—you’re not like them,” she said. “You’re not the same.”

Harry didn’t answer.

“You — you destroyed the Lar. You tamed Tezcatlipoca.”

“And yet, ended up doing exactly what he wanted.”

“Harry, you used the Eternum.”

“Used its power, yes, but the authority? That’s Him. Tezcatlipoca. The Jaguar. The Black magic of Binding. And the worst part? I created it using Permanence of Death. The same permanence that I used to Bind Ekrizdis’s suit. To undo it would be to undo everything, open the Gate and let the Anima flood in and destroy all of our Reality as we know it.”

“What… are you going to do about it?”

Harry snorted. “Nothing. I’ll do nothing, because I can do nothing. For the Blacks, Tezcatlipoca is a curse. For Britain, it is a demon-god. But for Reality — when the Other side knocks? It is the shield. It may consume your soul, drive your line mad, but it’ll keep Them out.”

“But it’s evil,” Daphne argued. “Look what it’s done. It’s —”

“The bad guy, yes,” said Harry. “But it’s our bad guy. Remember — it knows the gate; it is the gate; it is the key and guardian to the Gate. It’s not a case of Us versus Them, but Us versus Them who are also versus Them and versus Us. For all the damage it has done, for all the crimes it has committed, Tezcatlipoca maintains the borders. And that means, I have to ensure that it has to function perfectly.”

“But that means —”

“Yes,” Harry exhaled. “For better or worse, House Black has to return to the Miraculum Operarius. Bloody bastard was smugly telling me how it held all the cards, and I didn’t even realize it.”

How long was it planning this? How many centuries had this been brewing in the background? Was Sirius Arcturus Black’s zealotry truly his own? Was Arcturus Black truly the force of the resistance? Had the Black Family Magic devised a way to use Harry’s unique magical constitution through Sirius, or did it just see an opportunity at St. Mungo’s and capitalize on it? Had it truly been him who had made the choice or had been subtly guided by Tezcatlipoca’s will to construct the Gate? Was it even his creation, or merely the Jaguar’s vision?

He had stopped Ekrizdis. He had rolled back the power of the Anima. He had crafted the Azkaban Gate and stood on guard as its Gatekeeper.

But he had also manifested Binding. Come to think of it, employing the subtler powers of Binding had come so effortlessly to him. From Contagion to Reversal of Causality to Permanence, Harry had been able to channel those powers instinctively…. Just as instinctively as he wielded the sword of Godric Gryffindor with absolutely zero experience in swordsmanship.

At least the sword was easy to explain. To the right person, it allowed Godric’s instincts with the blade to come forth. His own physical limitations aside, he was able to channel those instincts as perfectly as possible, so long as he fulfilled the sword’s conditions.

But this? This wasn’t a set of pre-existing conditions. This was Family Magic. Providence of a god. 

And the worst part? A cold, cynical part of him whispered that he was being strung along by Death and Summer just like Tezcatlipoca. 

 It felt disorientating just thinking about it as if he was dancing to invisible strings all this time and had only begun to notice them.

Not for the first time, Harry began to feel out of his depths when it came to dealing with these damned powers.

She stepped forward now, slowly. Like someone approaching a caged thing that might yet bite.

“What will you do?” she asked softly.

“Not sure,” he murmured. “But there is one thing I can finally do.”

He met her eyes. “All this time, we thought that Sagittarius Black might have messed things up, and used the Black Family Magic to wing his vengeance on Ophelia Greengrass. But that’s not true, is it? It was the Lar all along, and with it erased for good…”

“We can get rid of the blood curse,” whispered Daphne, eyes wide.

“Yes,” said Harry, with a half-smile. “This time, for good.”