Regulus pressed his hand on the old doorbell.
"Jingle Bell-"
A harsh ringtone rang, instantly breaking the silence around him.
Suddenly, a terrifying-sounding cry came from inside the door. It was hard to hear clearly through the door, but one could vaguely tell that it contained a lot of insults and curse words.
Hearing this voice, Regulus seemed to be relieved.
"It sounds like my mother's voice." He glanced at Dracula and explained with some embarrassment, "Because I don't have a wand now and I have lost my magic power, so I can only ask my family to help me open the door."
Dracula nodded and stood waiting at the door with Regulus.
But no one opened the door for them.
The shouts in the room gradually became noisy, as if many people's voices were superimposed together, making it noisy, and countless unpleasant and harsh words came from those voices.
Regulus's face gradually changed, becoming paler than before.
Dracula glanced at him and realized that the situation seemed to be different from Regulus' original expectation, so he raised his hand and lightly snapped his fingers.
The door opened quietly—
What they saw before them was an almost dark hallway. Waves of wet, dusty smell came out, and there was also a sweet rotten smell.
It feels like an empty house that has been abandoned for a long time.
Regulus took a few steps to the side. Even in this darkness, he easily found the gas light switch in the room by relying on the habits he had developed over the years.
With a rustling sound, a row of old-fashioned gas lamps on the wall lit up, casting a dangling, unreal light into the long, gloomy foyer, illuminating the peeling wallpaper and On the threaded carpet.
There is a spiderweb-shaped chandelier above the head that shines slightly. The branches of the chandelier above the head and the candlestick placed on a rickety table next to it are all made into the shape of a big snake, which seems to be showing the cloth. The identity of Slytherin throughout the generations of the Gram family.
On the wall next to them hung crookedly some portraits blackened by age. At this time, all the portraits woke up, and those noisy shouts came from the mouths of these portraits...
The whole house was deserted!
"Did my naughty son finally escape?"
A huge portrait hung beside a moth-eaten and moldy curtain. It showed an old lady wearing a black pointed hat, yelling angrily.
It was also she who woke up the other portraits around her, causing them to shout with her.
"Is that pure-blood disgrace, filthy traitor, and scum of the family finally willing to go home?" the old lady shouted, "I would rather he died in Azkaban!"
After seeing the portrait of the old lady, Regulus didn't even hear what she said. He lost control of his emotions and walked under her portrait tremblingly.
The old lady's scolding voice suddenly became quiet.
With an incredulous expression on her face, she stared blankly at Regulus, who was walking from the door step by step.
"Is it really you... Regulus... my good son?" Her original fierce emotions seemed to be smoothed out in an instant, as if she had changed from a scolding old lady to a gentle mother.
"It's me." Regulus burst into tears, "I'm back, mother!"
The other portraits around him gradually became quiet, staring at the scene in front of them in a daze.
Without the portrait noticing, Dracula walked in from the corner of the corridor and looked curiously at the portraits all over the wall. He saw that the portrait of the old lady had the words Walburga Black written on it.
"You... you're not dead, Regulus?" Mrs. Walburga Black said, "Kreacher said you died in the Dark Lord's cave. You don't know how sad I was!"
"Did you know? Your father Orion passed away not long after you left. And your rebellious and shameful brother never came back! Well, his pure-blooded traitor doesn't deserve to come back. The family home handed down from the ancestors of Black!"
She laughed crazily, but her eyes turned dark again.
"Then I was the only one left in this family... Regulus, after so many years, why haven't you come home to take a look?"
Regulus looked at his mother's eyes sadly, hesitated for a long time, and finally said:
"I am dead, mother. I was made into an Inferi by the Dark Lord's magic, and my memory was restored by Mr. Dracula until yesterday."
"Oh! Merlin's beard!" Walburga covered his mouth, "You... you mean..."
"I am no longer a wizard, mother." Regulus said, "I am just the most despicable Inferi now. In fact, I am no longer worthy of returning to this family..."
"You actually turned into an Inferi?!" A portrait of the older generation of the Black family suddenly spoke, "You have become a shame to the Black family! Such a dirty species and stain on the bloodline cannot be ignored. Will be allowed into the Black family home!
"
His words made Regulus look extremely ugly and feel extremely heavy. He turned around and prepared to leave this house that made him sad.
Just then, Walburga Black spoke.
"Shut up!" she shouted angrily at the stubborn old portrait, "This is my son! I don't care what he becomes, he is my son no matter what!"
Regulus's steps stopped and his eyes became bright.
He couldn't believe that his mother, who valued the purity of her bloodline and cared so much about the honor of her family, would say such a thing. She admitted a son who had become an Inferi!
"Regulus, stay at home." Walburga urged Regulus loudly, "This will always be your home, no matter what you become. After you and your father leave, a The many years I have spent here are enough for me to think about this matter clearly!”
"Okay." Regulus turned around, blood-like tears filling his eyes again.
However, more elders of the Black family stood up and jointly accused Walburga of violating the ancestral precepts.
And Walburga also showed off her scolding momentum. She suppressed a group of old guys from the Black family by herself, verbally quarreled with the scholars, and scolded them unclearly from east to west.
Dracula looked at this scene with a chuckle, and said to a painting next to him that was hiding in a corner and watching the fun.
"Your family portraits are very vibrant, Principal Black."
"Ah... Actually, they are not always so unqualified, Mr. Count." Phineas Black, who had sparse eyebrows and a goatee, smiled awkwardly, "It's just that I saw little Regulus coming back today. , This made them a little excited."
Phineas Black was embarrassed now.
He was dozing off in the principal's office, but suddenly he sensed some considerable commotion in the Black ancestral residence, and thought of coming to take a look at the excitement. Who knew that when he arrived, he saw two groups of people yelling at each other and greeting each other's families...
Moreover, these portraits did not seem to have occurred to them at all for a while. They all came from the same family, and the family members they greeted were all their own family members...
What made Principal Black even more embarrassed was that he also met the powerful Count Dracula, a frequent visitor to the principal's office, here!
Now all the family scandal has been exposed...
"Let them argue first, Mr. Black." Dracula listened to the quarrel between these portraits for half an hour. When he got tired of hearing it, he walked over to Regulus who was stunned and patted him. "We have other things to do, don't forget Voldemort's Horcrux."
Regulus suddenly woke up and hurriedly left the noisy corridor, leading Dracula towards the stairs leading to the second floor.
After walking past the long, bug-eyed curtains on both sides of the portrait, and around a large umbrella stand that looked like it was made of a severed leg of a troll, we arrived at the dark staircase.
Walking up the dark stairs, there is a row of small wrinkled heads clustered on the wall panel next to the stairs. Dracula cast a dull glance at the heads and frowned -
Those were the heads of house elves, and they all had the same distinctive big noses.
"Are these heads... all house elves that once served your family?" Dracula's face darkened.
Regulus's expression stiffened.
"Yes, they were all house elves who served the Black family all their lives, and their heads were chopped off after death." He explained with some embarrassment, "This is passed down from Grandmother Eladora's generation. Bad habits, mostly from the old guys who were fighting with my mother.”
"Tsk, the house elves have dedicated their lives to wizards like you, but they ended up like this in the end." Dracula said in a mocking tone, "It seems that the decline of pure-blood families in the magical world is not without reason."
Dracula has always believed that the existence of the house-elf race is deformed.
This race clearly possesses considerable intelligence and considerable magical abilities, but they rely on wizards throughout their lives and regard serving wizards as the value of life.
Such a race deserves at least the most basic respect from wizards.
"Actually, we have been working hard to change these bad habits, but time has not given us more opportunities." Regulus said softly, "When it comes to my mother's generation, she has always gotten along very well with Kreacher, so she doesn't In favor of chopping off the heads of house elves."
"However, these heads left by the predecessors are stuck to the wall with permanent sticking spells. We, the descendants, have no way to remove them."
He looked at the row of neatly arranged house elf heads in front of him and sighed deeply.
"Permanent sticking spell, right?" Dracula looked at the wall next to him and raised the corners of his mouth coldly.
The next moment, he stretched out his nails, pointed them like a knife, and suddenly swung his left hand.
A sharp invisible light blade instantly cut through the wall, cutting off the heads of the row of house elves along with the entire outer layer of the wall.
“Reparo.”
Dracula waved his hand casually and repaired the wall he destroyed.
"Okay, the heads of these house elves are placed here." He placed the long piece of cut stone on the stairs leading to the second floor and said to Regulus, "When you have time Remember to bury them when they are empty, and let them rest in peace.”
Regulus stared dumbfoundedly at Dracula's smooth movements, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses.
"I understand, Mr. Dracula." He nodded.
After smoothly handling the house elf head on the wall, the two came to the living room on the second floor.
The second-floor living room of Blake's house was a mess, with dust, cobwebs, and mold everywhere. Still, there's a hint from the layout that at least it was once gorgeous and sophisticated.
There was a large, dirty window in the living room that afforded an unobstructed view of the street in front of the house. A large fireplace without a flame for a long time is located in the front of the living room, flanked by two gorgeous glass cabinets.
One wall of the living room is covered with a tapestry depicting a tree-like diagram.
The tapestry looked very old, and the color was dull, as if foxes had bitten it in several places. However, the gold thread embroidered on it still shines - it is a branching family tree that can be traced back to the Middle Ages.
There are several large words embroidered on the tapestry - The noble and oldest Black family is always pure.
"So this is your family tree?"
Dracula looked at this tapestry and immediately became interested. He walked to the tapestry and looked at it carefully.
He saw many celebrities from this family tree. Even if he didn't pay much attention to current events in the magical world, he could easily identify them -
Near the top of the tapestry are the names of Phineas Nigellus, the most unpopular headmaster in Hogwarts history; and near Headmaster Black's name is Araminta Meliver. Lun, she tried to force through a Ministry of Magic decree legalizing the killing of Muggles...
"There are quite a few famous people in your family!" Dracula said with a chuckle, "But they don't seem to be good people."
"Because most of the 'good people' in the traditional sense don't really agree with the family's ideals, they were eventually removed from the family tree." Regulus said helplessly.
"Then your family is really interesting." Dracula laughed casually.
Then, he pointed to the name at the bottom of the family tree—Regulus Arcturus. Following the birth date is a death date: 1979.
"That's your name, right?" Dracula asked.
Regulus looked at his name vaguely, looked at the date of death after his birth date, and nodded slowly.
"Actually, I often think that I am still the same Regulus Black as before." He said softly, "I forget that I have become an inferi, a stain on the pure bloodline that was spurned by my ancestors. ”
"If only their so-called 'pure blood' was not a stain, then the Black family would not be reduced to what it is now." Dracula chuckled, "If you ask me, dark creatures and wizards There is no big difference. Whether you can reach higher heights is your own choice.”
"The four founders of Hogwarts can be said to be wizards with the most pure blood, right? But Godric and the others never cared about the purity of their blood, and even went as far as to let Muggle-born wizards enter the school to study. Salazar fell out."
"As for Salazar, the founder of Slytherin that your family admires most, he actually doesn't care about the so-called purity of blood. He refuses admission to Muggle-born wizards because he is just worried about Hogwarts. It’s just concealment and safety.”
Dracula said this and patted Regulus on the shoulder happily.
"So be a dark creature, Mr. Black!"
"But after I became an Inferi, I couldn't even feel the existence of magic power in my body." Regulus said with some confusion, "I don't know what to do now. Maybe I can only stay at home and be one of them. In your eyes, you are a blood traitor..."
"It seems that you still don't trust my necromancy." Dracula raised his lips and said to Regulus, "Don't worry. After all your organs are repaired, your bloodline will also be restored." Once it is completed, the magic power will naturally emerge in your body again."
"Of course, there will still be some small differences from before - the magic power regenerated in your body will be converted into dark attributes. But you don't have to worry about this, right? There are so many dark magic books in the Black family!"
Regulus was a little stunned at first, and then smiled in relief.
At this moment, a house elf suddenly walked into the living room on the second floor tremblingly.
"Master Regulus... is that you?" He opened his eyes wide, rubbed his bloodshot and muddy eyes in disbelief, and made a hoarse, low voice like a bullfrog.
Dracula moved his eyes over and saw an extremely old and ugly house elf.
His head was bald, but a lot of white hair grew out of his two big bat-like ears. Except for a dirty rag around his skinny waist, he was almost naked, and his exposed skin turned up countless times. There seemed to be many times more folds than his body actually needed.
Regulus smiled happily when he saw this ugly house elf.
"It's me," he said with a smile, "I'm back, Kreacher!"
Hearing the familiar yet unfamiliar voice of Regulus, Kreacher could no longer control the emotions in his heart. He rushed to the young master he longed for, knelt on the ground and hugged his legs.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Master Regulus, you are finally back!"
He cried bitterly for a long time. It wasn't until he calmed down a little that he managed to say his first complete sentence -
"Master Regulus, go and take a look. The wall on the stairs on the second floor has been demolished!" he said in a panic. "I wanted to cut off the head and glue it back on like my mother! But now it's not. Opportunity!”
After hearing Kreacher's words, Dracula's face immediately darkened.
Well, the house elf is hopeless!
…
…