Chapter 178: Clearing the Basement
"Leave him be," Sirius said with clear disgust, glancing at Kreacher before frowning slightly.
"But what was he doing down here? And what did he mean by 'disturbing Regulus's rest'?"
He couldn't make sense of it, ultimately dismissing it as more of Kreacher's rambling madness.
Only then did they truly take in the state of the Black family basement.
Filthy. Decaying. Choked with dust.
Suddenly—
Harry stepped on something.
A skull snapped its jaws and lunged straight at him, as if trying to tear a chunk of flesh from his body.
"Bang!"
Sirius yanked Harry aside and flicked his wand sharply, sending the skull crashing to the ground.
"Kreacher's idea of a 'traditional Black family welcome,'" Sirius sneered, kicking the rolling skull away. "Looks like he's been busy."
"Don't touch anything that moves on its own—especially anything bearing the family crest."
Wednesday raised her wand, casting Lumos.
The beam of light swept across dusty oak shelves.
Hundreds of glass jars glimmered faintly in the shadows. Inside them, suspended in murky green and violet liquids, were grotesque specimens—slowly drifting, as if alive.
A scaled infant's hand.
A raven's head with a third eye embedded in its skull.
Even half of a pale mermaid's tail, tangled in strands of waterweed.
"What are these?" Wednesday asked, her curiosity piqued.
Even compared to Severus Snape's potions classroom, these specimens were far more bizarre—far more… appealing to her tastes.
Sirius lifted his wand, its tip igniting with a cold blue flame as he moved it slowly along the rows of jars.
Under the warped, flickering light—
The organs suspended within seemed to pulse faintly…
As though they still carried a trace of life.
Seeing how interested Wednesday was, Sirius finally relented. Though he clearly disliked talking about these things, he began explaining them one by one.
It helped that the only girl present was the one most fascinated by such horrors—otherwise, he wouldn't have said a word.
"We call this the Scaled Infant's Hand," Sirius said.
"A failed result from one of the Black family's so-called 'bloodline enhancement experiments' in the nineteenth century."
He tapped the glass jar lightly with his wand. The scales shimmered with a metallic sheen as they vibrated.
"Arcturus Black became obsessed with creating hybrid offspring resistant to magic. He fed his pregnant wife the flesh and blood of ancestral merfolk."
"For nine consecutive weeks, Merope Black was forced to ingest mermaid gill glands. The fetus underwent irreversible mutation… just like what you see here."
Wednesday leaned closer, studying it carefully. Between the scales, faint traces of twisted ancient runes could be seen.
"These markings… are they artificially embedded magical inscriptions?"
"More precisely, magical conduits formed by the merfolk gill glands," Sirius corrected.
"The fetus survived in the womb for seven months. When it was cut out, it nearly strangled the midwife. They severed this hand for study—and discovered the scales could deflect Stunning Spells. Later, they were used to craft anti-curse cloaks."
"—It moved!"
Harry suddenly cried out, stumbling back.
The liquid inside the jar bubbled faintly. The infant's index finger tapped slowly against the glass.
"Yes," Sirius said calmly. "It's alive."
"But it has no intelligence. It just drifts instinctively."
Wednesday's eyes flickered slightly.
For some reason… it reminded her of the "Thing" back home.
"Next—Three-Eyed Raven."
Sirius shifted his wand to another jar, pulling away the black cloth covering it.
Inside was a grotesque creature with an oversized head—likely to accommodate the massive third eye embedded in its skull. Its body looked far too small to support it.
"Thirteenth-century Black family work," Sirius said flatly. "Created to impress descendants of Slytherin."
"They captured thirty intelligent ravens and experimented on them."
Wednesday pressed closer to the glass, observing intently. Then she turned her head slightly.
"There's something inside its skull… a parasite."
"Sharp eye," Sirius snapped his fingers. "They implanted larvae of a Swooping Evil into each raven."
"When the parasite took hold, the ravens would fly to Muggle villages and deposit the larvae into people's ears while they slept. The neurotoxins would create intense psychological submission to the caster."
"Entire villages went mad and slaughtered each other—for the amusement of Slytherin's heirs. The Ministry took three months to cover it up."
Even obtaining a single Swooping Evil was difficult.
They had used dozens.
"And this—" Sirius's voice dropped.
"—is the dirtiest trade the family ever made."
Inside the next jar floated a pale mermaid tail, its severed edge jagged and uneven.
"Knockturn Alley once dealt in a potion called Siren's Kiss—an obsession draught made from living merfolk spinal fluid."
"My grandfather wiped out three merfolk settlements to monopolize the supply."
Harry frowned, noticing the torn edge.
"This wasn't cut… it looks like it was ripped off."
"Because the extraction required the merfolk to remain conscious."
"They used a flesh-severing technique combined with a modified Bone-Regrowing Potion to keep the wounds regenerating while harvesting fluid."
"One tail could yield over four hundred gallons… until the victim's magic was drained and they turned to stone."
Sirius peeled back the label at the bottom of the jar, revealing faded notes written in dried blood.
For a moment, Harry felt as though he could see it—
A pale mermaid chained to a reef, her tail torn apart, smiling eerily as she sang a silent song.
"And this one…" Sirius's expression twisted with disgust.
"I don't even know why it's still here."
A charred black heart floated inside a quartz container filled with liquid fire. With each pulse, it released blue-violet sparks.
Ancient runes were carved into the glass:
"Mortem non credunt" — They do not believe in death.
"My cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange's work."
Sirius cast a freezing charm to suppress the violent fluctuations of the container.
"She once strung together twelve Muggle hearts as a necklace and offered them to the Dark Lord."
"This is the only one that survived… because it kept beating even after being removed."
He opened a hidden compartment beneath the jar, revealing a yellowed photograph.
A hollow-chested Muggle woman smiled at the camera.
"Bellatrix used the Cruciatus Curse to force her victims to carve their own hearts—engraving 'Eternal Loyalty' before they died."