Chapter 200: Secrets of the darkest art

For example, Araminta Meliflua, Sirius' mother's cousin, was mentioned as a worthy lady by Kreacher.

But was she as good as Kreacher said? If Ivan remembered correctly, the most famous thing this "Lady" did was try to force a ministerial bill to legalize Muggle hunting.

And under the influence of the Galleons, this inhuman bill had almost passed. But it had been rejected, as its contents were too horrible.

There was also Elladora, Sirius's aunt.

In the Black family, she started the family tradition of beheading house elves when they became too old to carry tea trays, and this was quickly emulated and promoted among other pureblood wizarding families.

It was amazing that this behavior, which was extremely ridiculous to all normal people, had earned the praise of the last house elf of the Black family, Kreacher. He actually seemed to want his head to hang along with that of his predecessors as well!

Besides, there were many others similar to them and praised by Kreacher.

In short, unlike Harry and Hermione, who were confused and bewildered, Ivan saw that the names appearing on the Black family tree were getting worse and worse.

Especially since this century was filled almost entirely with evil dark wizards or disgusting pureblood supporters of the Black family, who did so many evil and cruel things and earned such a reputation for it that not even mildly decent people were to be seen.

This did not mean that there were no decent figures in the Black family, but immediately after their appearance, like Sirius, they were quickly isolated by all family members and taken out of the family tree as if they had never existed before....

"Ivan, Hermione, look at this place." Harry pointed to a name on the right side of the tapestry and said curiously, "It's Malfoy, he's in this family tree too."

In the direction of Harry's finger, Ivan saw a double line of gold embroidery linking Narcissa Black to Lucius Malfoy, and a single vertical gold line of their names leading to Draco's name.

"Miss Narcissa, Draco's mother, is Young Master Sirius' cousin." Kreacher hastened to explain, "When my Mistress was still here, Kreacher had seen her many times, Miss Narcissa came to visit the Mistress every week. Unlike the taciturn and rebellious Master Sirius, she is a respectable witch. She had a good relationship with young Master Regulus. She is also very fond of Kreacher..."

Ivan understood what Kreacher meant. He could tell that the house elf felt a great affection for Narcissa.

It was no need to guess that Narcissa was much kinder to him compared to Sirius.

That was also one of the main reasons why Kreacher eventually revealed information to Malfoy, which led to Sirius' death.

It seemed that in the future, he had to be careful.

"I can't believe it, Sirius is related to the Malfoys!" Hearing Kreacher's explanation, Harry was shocked. "How is that possible?"

"Nothing is impossible. A pureblood wizarding family can only be connected by marriage to a pureblood wizard. Needless to say, a Muggle, or even a half-blood wizard, cannot be accepted. According to this rule, the choice of spouses is very limited." Next to Narcissa, Ivan saw Bellatrix Black, a double-threaded golden line connecting her to the name Rodolphus Lestrange.

At the thought of the craziest Death Eater under Voldemort's hands, Ivan had a strange, grim feeling in the back of his mind. He was not willing to look at this unpleasant family tree any longer. He wanted to see the Black family's collection of books.

In front of them, the entire room was divided into four collection areas, of which the area near the northwest wall stored the history of magic and the Black family archives; on the east side of these books were the study notes of the history of the Black family members. That section was the largest, with over 30 shelves.

On the south side, near the exit, were many books on white magic such as metamorphosis and potions, many of which had duplicates in the Hogwarts Library.

Most striking was the collection of books in the southwest corner, separated by ropes and other areas. The shelves there were different from the brown shelves in the other three areas. They were all unpleasantly black, and the book collection was very small. There were only four shelves and they were not full.

If Ivan didn't guess wrong, all the black magic books should be there.

He hesitated and saw Hermione in the magical history books section, there were many internal notes from members of the Black family, all of them secret and not open to the outside world. She was very interested in this information.

Accompanied by Kreacher, Harry went to the other side of the bookshelf, and Ivan heard him ask about the books on defense against the dark arts.

Seeing that no one was watching him, Ivan quickly went to the area where the dark magic books were placed.

He walked over to a huge bookshelf filled with magical books. These old shelves were covered with thick dust and small cracks.

The thick magic books placed on top were also covered with dust, and the scalded and faded hot-stamped letters on the spines were no longer able to accurately display the titles.

Ivan looked hard, and most of the words and grammars in the books were very incomprehensible and difficult to understand. They all used centuries-old grammatical vocabulary, or ancient magical text, and some books even had no text on the cover.

Ivan didn't know if it was a hallucination, but he could feel a wave of whispers coming from the book in front of him.

Under the dim, shadowy candlelight, all the hair on his body stood on end.

Fortunately, Sirius was not there, as Ivan was sure Sirius would not allow him to come and see this section. He must have intended to give the normal magic books to him and Hermione as Christmas presents.

Ivan looked at it for a while, and excluded several books he had seen before, along with those that had no name and were written in ancient magic.

Unlike a normal magic book, a book of dark magic was very dangerous and he had to be careful.

Also, most of these black magic books were handwritten. The authors themselves were often very evil. Many were extremely fierce dark magicians. They were likely to leave evil in them as they copied the magic book. Such dark magic, if not careful, could be very dangerous.

The language itself, the ancient magical text itself had magical power. If it is organized and combined correctly, it means that magic has come into effect.

In history, there were many people who wanted to become dark magicians. When they just opened their first book of dark magic, they sadly lost their lives.

Ivan did not want to end up like that. He hesitated, then picked up the black and silver book that was closest to him, and put it on his knees. This book was several centuries old paper, its title had been removed, and it was covered with several dark prints, much like blood, which were very scary.

Ivan did not rush to open it, but touched it gently with his fingers.

Just by touching it with his fingers, he recognized the name of the book in his arms, and it was Secrets of the Darkest Art.

What, how could this be possible?

He looked at the magical book on her knees in horror, and it was actually a book about the secrets of sophisticated dark magic, recording how the Horcrux was made.

From the information Ivan had found earlier, this magic is extremely rare. As the best book on dark magic, the Secrets of the Darkest Art is known to have been lost to the world of magic. Except for one copy at Hogwarts, it could not be seen anywhere else.