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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 83: Blackthorn House And Morgan's Past
"Mmmm… this must have been five hundred years ago. Around the same time that the Ministry of Magic was first established in London," Morgan said. "The most important wizard houses in the country got together to form the Wizengamot. Blackthorn was one of those houses."
Harry listened to her talk and remained silent.
"If I remember correctly, their specialty was enchantments. They would create some powerful magical artifacts. At the time, the house was ruled by a man named Robert Blackthorn. But he was getting on in years, and people were looking more at his son for guidance. A nasty wizard named Walter Blackthorn."
"I'm guessing that this Walter is the one who started the problem," Harry said.
"I already had a few issues with other wizard houses when I first opened my shop. Some of them were claiming that this land was theirs and that I should be paying them taxes. But they never took things too far, as they knew those claims were nonsense. But this guy… he came one day in here. I remember it quite vividly." She pointed at the door of her shop.
"He came through the door with two other members of his family. At that time, Knockturn Alley was fairly empty. Only a few shops had been set up, and mine was one of them. So Walter Blackthorn wasted no time in making me an offer. In reality, it was just a demand."
"He wanted your money," Harry said.
"He wanted the shop and the houses around it, but promised to keep me here as an employee."
"How generous," said Harry.
Morgan smiled. "I sent him away, as well as his two men. I think one of them may have died… anyway. I didn't expect to see him again. But this was a very stubborn guy."
"He came back for more?" Harry was surprised to hear this. Seeing Morgan angry just once should be enough to instill terror in the hearts of anyone.
"Apparently, my display of strength had left him impressed. So on his next visit, he came with a different offer."
Harry had the feeling that he knew where this was going.
"He no longer wanted the shop or the land. He wanted me to become his wife. He believed that with a powerful witch such as myself at his side, his house would become the most influential one in all Britain."
"I imagine you said no…"
Morgan glared at him. "Of course I said no! What were you thinking? The guy was an idiot."
"And since I know that is not where the story ends… he did not take that rejection very well," Harry added.
"Nope. A week later, he tried to sneak into my shop at night and place a slavery collar on me," Morgan said.
"Yikes…" Harry grimaced. He could only imagine how enraged Morgan must have been.
"Apparently, it was a family invention." She extended her hand, and an object flew from one of the shelves. It was a black collar with runic inscriptions on its surface.
"Don't tell me… You kept it?" Harry asked with incredulity.
"It seemed like a nice souvenir. And I like collecting interesting artifacts," Morgan responded.
"And what did you do with this Walter guy?"
"I ripped his head from his shoulders," Morgan responded casually.
Harry grumbled something under his breath.
"But that didn't feel like enough to pay for the offense. His entire family had enabled this bastard's behavior. And I was sure that the idea of using a slavery collar came from his father, who was no better than the son."
"You went to find the rest of the family?"
Morgan nodded. "At the time, I could still move through most of London, and their main manor was here. So I went there and… didn't leave a brick intact."
"All of them?" Harry asked.
"As far as I knew, yes. I found the current Lord of the family, as well as Walter's uncles, an aunt, and some cousins. No children were present," Morgan elaborated. "Anyway… I never heard anything about any other Blackthorn again, so I assumed that the entire house was destroyed. I suppose they must have had a secondary manor somewhere else, and a few members survived. Then went to live in Spain."
"You said that this was what started your feud with the Ministry. Right?"
"It was," said Morgan. "The other wizard houses heard about what happened and decided that this new version of Magical Britain could not have a witch so dangerous in it. So they formed a task force of combat wizards to deal with the situation. The first Auror Department. And they came to arrest me."
"That did not go well for them, did it?"
"It wasn't pleasant for me either, you know? I lost a lot of my own stuff during their raids. It seemed that no matter how many I killed, they just kept coming for more and messing up my things with their bombardment spells. So after I completely lost my patience, I went to pay a visit to their newly created Ministry of Magic and unleashed all my anger on them. They never bothered me again after that."
"I can imagine…" Harry was not surprised that they would go on to create laws forbidding any interaction with Morgan from then on.
"So that's the story," she said.
"And now we may need their help…" Harry said.
"If they catch wind that I am behind the request, they will never help us," Morgan said.
He nodded. "Then let me deal with them. Pass me their information, and I will go to Spain by myself." This was their best option. They had no idea how long it would take to find someone else capable of decoding that book.
If they couldn't get the information stored in there, it would be extremely difficult to find the main bases of the Argent Flame.
Harry had the feeling that the remaining fragments of Excalibur would also be found in those bases. And perhaps… whatever was left of the old King Arthur.
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