Orion Black

**Orion Regulus Black** (18 May 1929 – 24 December 1979) was a pure-blood wizard, and the second child and only son of Arcturus Black III and Melania Macmillan, the brother of Lucretia Prewett (née Black), the husband and second cousin of Walburga Black, and the father of Sirius III and Regulus II. He was also a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, an old wizarding family and one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

### Early Life (1920s-1950s)

Orion was a member of the traditionalist pure-blood House of Black, who looked down on any except other "respectable" pure-blood wizards and believed in pure-blood supremacy. He was the son of Arcturus Black III and Melania Black (née Macmillan), and the younger brother of Lucretia Prewett (née Black). He was born on 18 May, 1929, to much pomp and celebration. His birth was announced in the Daily Prophet. Orion was the new Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, and witches and wizards around the United Kingdom were often interested to see photographs of the tot, which were published in the Daily Prophet. His paternal grandfather was Sirius Black II, who was the Head of the House of Black at the time.

His paternal grandmother was Hesper Black (née Gamp), who passed away in Orion's first year of life, meaning that he never got to know her. Before leaving for school, he was instructed in the ways of his Noble House, and studied several languages, including French, German, Latin, and Gobbledegook. He learned calligraphy, astronomy, and many other subjects in his early childhood.

Orion led a relatively lonely childhood compared to his father, Arcturus. His father had a multitude of first cousins and had been socialised from the beginning of his childhood to the end of it, but Orion had very little cousins and no one to play with. He hardly cared for such childish games as a result, and became a most impressive and studious student instead. He enjoyed the company of his elder sister, Lucretia, but eventually found her irritating.

### Hogwarts years (1940s)

He attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from September 1940 to June of 1947, and owned a wand made of hawthorn and dragon heartstring, which he presumably purchased from Ollivander's Wand Shop in Diagon Alley or abroad. He was a student of Slytherin House and was sorted on 1 September, 1940.

He shared a dormitory with his second cousin, Alphard Black, as well as three other boys. He was on friendly terms with his other second cousin, Bartemius Crouch Snr, as well. He was polite with Ignatius Greengrass but did not get on well with Reuben McKinnon at first, as none of the boys did.

ccording to Alphard Black, Orion was the one to protect him when others who failed to understand his health issues at first began to tease him mercilessly. Orion apparently was quick to step up and prevent those in Slytherin from doing so. For the first few years of school, Alphard stuck close to Orion as well as Reuben McKinnon, though Orion himself did not get on with McKinnon.

In Orion's third year of school, the Chamber of Secrets was opened by Tom Riddle, which resulted in the petrification of four muggle-borns, and the death of a Ravenclaw student in Orion's year, Myrtle Warren. Another student in Orion's year was framed for her death, Rubeus Hagrid, as well as an illegal acromantula he'd been hiding in the school, which was passed off as the monster.

Orion was made Prefect in his fifth year by Headmaster Armando Dippet, and that year he was invited to join the Slug Club, a highly-selective group of students put together by the Potions Master, Professor Horace Slughorn, who somehow saw their potential, whether it be through powerful spells, high grades, or other means.

In his sixth year of school, he was hospitalized in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries for "unknown reasons," but he made a quick recovery and was back at school by the end of Easter. The incident made the second page of the Daily Prophet, but no one knew what had happened. It was likely that Sirius Black II was forced to pay many people off to hush it up. However, it was no secret that Orion's second cousin, Alphard, was a sickly individual and many attributed the incident to that.

Despite this, Orion left Hogwarts with a total of eleven N.E.W.T.s, which was highly impressive. His father did not acknowledge his achievement, however, as he himself had gained twelve N.E.W.T.s when he had been in school, and considered high marks an expectation and not something to be rewarded.

For quite some time, Orion did not have a happy adolescence. There were some days where Arcturus reportedly feared for his relationship with his son, who resented the family (but mostly the idea of marriage). Orion developed a temper in his Hogwarts years and for a period of two years after graduation disappeared. He kept in contact with his grandfather, Sirius II, but not his father.

### Engagement and marriage (1958)

Eleven years after leaving Hogwarts, Orion married the daughter of his father Arcturus's cousin Pollux. Orion and Walburga were second cousins. Orion originally did not want to marry anyone, and there may have been some wrangling on Pollux and Arcturus's part to get him to agree. Arcturus likely threatened his son with arranging him to marry a decidedly more unpleasant witch, and because Orion and Walburga had known each other since childhood, Orion was eventually forced to agree.

Walburga, on the other hand, had always been infatuated with her second cousin, which Orion had found odd. However, Walburga was nearly thirty-four when they entered the courtship, which was considered late for a society witch. It was entirely possible that she had been waiting for Orion, who was nearly thirty and still unmarried.

Orion and Walburga married on 28 June, 1958. Much like his parents before him, the ceremony was heavily covered in wizarding media. At this time, the Blacks were the wealthiest wizarding family in Britain, and Arcturus Black, having taken on the Headship in 1952 upon the passing of his father, Sirius II, was the wealthiest man in the British wizarding world.

### The First Wizarding War (1970-1979)

The early effects of First Wizarding War had taken hold around the House of Black: a wizard by the name of Voldemort had declared himself a Dark Lord, taking advantage of a charged political climate to do so.

In 1968, Orion would have been around to witness Nobby Leach exit his office for mysterious health reasons. Around the same time, a conspiracy theory surfaced that Leach had been poisoned by his Muggle-prejudiced advisor,  Abraxas Malfoy. Leach was then replaced as Minister of Magic by Eugenia Jenkins, who, like her predecessor, was sympathetic to issues of social justice. Squibs then began marching for their rights, which spurred pure-blood supremacists to riot. Throughout the 1960s, with various minority groups demanding to be treated as equals, many of the old, elite pure-blood houses, to which Orion himself as well as almost all of the Death Eaters belonged, increasingly felt that their very way of life was being threatened. Many pure-blood supremacists who did not join the ranks of the Death Eaters nonetheless gave their wholehearted support to Voldemort's cause in secret even still. This included Orion's wife Walburga, who was increasingly swayed by the news of the day.

Orion's son, Sirius, received his Hogwarts letter in July 1971. However, on 1 September, 1971, Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor, an act which greatly offended most of the family. Orion's wife was the most angered by Sirius's sorting, and wanted to disown him, but Orion's father, Arcturus, talked her down, and as the Head of his House, refused to do so. Arcturus might have been certainly disappointed that Sirius hadn't made the noble house of Slytherin, but his approach was pragmatic, and the family took no action. Orion himself saw his wife as extreme, and told her so.

As their two children aged, Sirius became even more of a severe disappointment to Orion's wife, Walburga, because he did not agree with the ideology of blood purity. Orion was indifferent and although he may have actually harboured a deep resentment for his son, he did not show it as much as his wife, if he did.

Sirius further attempted to tick off his parents (particularly his mother) by decorating his room with posters from the muggle world depicting bikini-clad women and motorcycles, and had stuck those to the walls with irreversible sticking charms that infuriated her. During most of his adolescence, he remembers his father as an absent person, who did not interfere in their spats. At one time, he called his father "*weak*."

Voldemort later launched a revolution against the British Ministry of Magic with the intention of toppling it, in 1975. He announced his intentions in private of creating a new world order run by pure-bloods with Muggles kept in utter bondage servitude and Lord Voldemort himself as the immortal ruler for all time. He hosted society parties while silently recruited others for his cause. Those that became apart of his organisation were first known as Walpurgis Knights, and then later as Death Eaters. Orion's wife, Walburga, likely attended some of these meetings.

To achieve these ends, the Death Eaters and their allies (including the particularly destructive Giants) began openly carrying out attacks on Muggles for sport and to show chaos. Cleaning up these attacks, healing survivors, modifying memories, searching for the perpetrators, and attempting to prevent future attacks occupied more and more of the Ministry's time and attention. As their confidence grew, the Death Eaters began targeting Muggle-born and blood traitor witches and wizards as well, torturing and sometimes killing their victims, which shocked wizarding society. Other "inferior" magical beings such as house-elves (who were treated like vermin) and Goblins (a family of which was slaughtered) also suffered under their reign of terror. To inspire yet more terror, the Death Eaters would cast the Dark Mark in the sky over every house or scene that they killed at.

Orion's niece, Bellatrix, decided to join the organisation in 1975. Voldemort had taken Bellatrix under his personal wing, sharing with her his personal-secret knowledge of the Dark Arts; and inspiring in Bellatrix a delusional-psychotic attraction bordering on loving obsession, which Voldemort never honestly returned. That same year, Orion either read about or witnessed Eugenia Jenkins get ousted as Minister of Magic, and get replaced by Harold Minchum, a hardliner who placed more Dementors around Azkaban.

In addition, the new ruthless Head of the Council of Magical Law, and Orion's former schoolmate at Hogwarts, Bartemius Crouch Senior, rose rapidly through the Ministry's ranks until he also became the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Minchum and Crouch then began to make serious headway, though the anonymous and elusive Death Eaters still retained the advantage. Orion likely read about this in the paper.

The next year, in 1976, Orion's son, Sirius, ran away from home. His father, Arcturus, visited Grimmauld Place himself, and witnessed Orion's wife holding a candle to their son's depiction on the Black family tapestry, an artefact that has been around since the 16th century.

Orion's second son, Regulus, aged 15, became the defacto Black heir following Sirius's flight. Regulus, who was a Slytherin, and a child that was often overlooked by all those except his parents, though he had wonderful accomplishments, was apprehensive at first. He, too, hoped that Sirius would return, but as time went on and that became less and less likely, he began to take up the mantle of the Black family heir.

Walburga arranged for Regulus's cousin, Bellatrix, to take him on a Death Eater rendezvous, where he met many pure-bloods who had all been inspired and radicalised by the Dark Lord Voldemort. Orion likely did not have any idea of this until Regulus announced proudly that he had joined the Dark Lord.

The war had picked up and the amount of missing witches and wizards that were not pure-bloods was climbing into the hundreds by 1978. Orion, according to his father Arcturus, had begun to feel that his grandson had made a mistake taking a side, and while Arcturus at the time had little influence over Bellatrix, he felt that she had erred as well.

Regulus and Bellatrix's choices officially allied the House of Black with the Dark Lord Voldemort. Walburga had also donated a great amount of money to Voldemort's cause, which was an action of her own doing. Orion was hardly pressed about stopping it, as he himself was a pure-blood and a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, although it is rumoured that he did not agree with Voldemort's agenda.

Orion may have felt helpless as he watched his younger son descend into darkness, initially believing him to have been completely radicalised by those preaching pureblood supremacy. He likely believed that Regulus had been partially responsible, in some way, for the murders of many, though he was not yet done with school.

However, this was precisely the opposite.

Regulus, in fact, had realised that he had erred in joining the Dark Lord. He was sixteen when he joined, and for some time, naively believed that he was going to participate in the "cleansing of the Wizarding World." He had been inspired by his cousin Bellatrix and threatened by his mother, and Orion did not care about him enough to stop him from doing so.

It was not but a month after Regulus joined when he quickly became incredibly disenchanted with the cause's insane and brutal leader. In February 1979, Voldemort requested the use of Regulus's personal house-elf Kreacher, and then callously left him to die. When Kreacher managed survive and to return home over Valentine's, Regulus deduced that Voldemort had created a Horcrux and then attempted to destroy it in March, over the Easter holidays. This failed, and resulted in his violent death at the hands of the Inferi, though he did manage to replace the locket with a fake and entrust the real Horcrux to Kreacher. Orion did not know any of this.

When Regulus went missing, like so many others had, Orion's parents, Arcturus and Melania, stayed at Grimmauld Place with his weepy wife, who made posters for the Daily Prophet. Regulus had not yet finished school when he went missing, and had not even sat his N.E.W.T.s before he was declared dead at seventeen- a month before his eighteenth birthday in April. Walburga turned to Orion, for comfort but he had fallen on the drink.

It is important to note that Sirius III once said that his father was an alcoholic throughout his adolescence, and most likely was repeating habits that he had already developed. Orion did not begin drinking because his son had died, but his drinking *did* increase past the point of it being unhealthy.

## Personality

Orion had black hair and grey eyes, the typical traits of the House of Black. Much like the rest of the Black family, he was tall, well-built, and darkly handsome. He greatly resembled his father in face, so much, that Professor Horace Slughorn exclaimed of twins when they first met.

## Abilities and Skills

*See Power Scale for more information.*

*Orion's Abilities and Skills*
 Charms
 Potions
 Astronomy
 Dark Arts

### Other Skills

* **Wandless and non-verbal magic**: Orion was incredibly skilled at both wandless and non-verbal magic, which in the Wizarding World, is particularly difficult to master. His father taught him when he was a teenager, and he later also passed that down to his two oldest sons.
* **Defensive charms:** Orion Black must have had an extensive knowledge of defensive magic. While he resided at 12 Grimmauld Place, he cast on it every single security measure known to wizardkind, including a Muggle-Repelling charm. These charms were still effective long after Orion's death.
* **French:** Orion was instructed in the French language from an early age and as a result, he could speak it fluently.
* **German**: Orion was instructed in the German language from an early age and as a result, he could speak it fluently.

## Possessions and Properties

* **Wand:** 13”, hawthorn, dragon heartstring