Irma Crabbe

## Irma Wilhelmina Black (née Crabbe)

### Died

2 December, 1989 (aged 88)The Summer House, Castle Gate, Cornwall, Great Britain

## Relationship information

### Family members

* Joseph Crabbe (father) †
* Antoinette Crabbe (née Greengrass) (mother) †
* Pollux Black (husband)
	+ Walburga Black (daughter) †
	+ Orion Black (son-in-law) †
		- Sirius Black (grandson) †
		- Regulus Black (grandson) †
		- Altair Black (grandson)
		- Aquila Black (granddaughter)
	+ Cygnus Black IV (son) †
	+ Druella Rosier (first cousin 1x rem./daughter-in-law)
		- Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black) (granddaughter)
		- Andromeda Tonks (née Black)(granddaughter)
		- Narcissa Malfoy (née Black) (granddaughter)
		- Lucius Malfoy (grandson-by-law)
			* Draco Malfoy (great-grandson)
	+ Alphard Black (son) †
* Victor Crabbe (brother) †
* Thea Crabbe (née Abbott) (sister-in-law) †
	+ Vincent Crabbe Sr. (nephew)
	+ Beatrix Crabbe (née Burke) (niece-by-law)
		- Vincent Crabbe (great nephew)
* Flora Weasley (née Crabbe) (sister) †
* Barnabas Weasley (brother-in-law) †
	+ Emil Weasley (nephew)
	+ Angus Weasley (nephew)
* Vincent Crabbe I (paternal grandfather) †
* Horatia Crabbe (née Crouch) (paternal grandmother) †
	+ Balbina Selwyn (née Crabbe) (paternal aunt) †
	+ Donalbain Selwyn (uncle by marriage) †
		- Fionnuala Parkinson (née Selwyn) (first cousin) †
		- Ursula Warrington (née Selwyn) (first cousin) †
* Magnus Greengrass (maternal grandfather) †
* Antoinette of Saxe-Coburg (maternal grandmother) †
	+ Percival Greengrass (maternal uncle) †
	+ Mathilda Yaxley (maternal aunt) †
	+ Bertram Yaxley (uncle by marriage)
		- Florinda Rosier (née Yaxley) (first cousin) †
		- Marcelin Rosier (cousin-in-law) †
			* Druella Rosier (first cousin 1x rem.)
		- Serafina Parkinson (née Yaxley) (first cousin) †
		- Eugenie Yaxley (first cousin) †
		- Lucinda Yaxley (first cousin) †
		- Corban Yaxley (first cousin)

## Affiliation

### Loyalty

* House of Black
* House of Crabbe

**Irma Wilhelmina Black** (née **Crabbe**) (9 November, 1901 - 2 December, 1989) was an English pure-blood witch and a member of the Ancient House of Crabbe from birth. She was the oldest child of Joseph Crabbe and his wife Antoinette Crabbe (née Greengrass). She attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1913 to 1920.

She was the wife of Pollux Black and the mother of Walburga, Alphard, and Cygnus. She was the grandmother of seven: her grandchildren were Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Altair Black, Aquila Black, Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black), Andromeda Tonks (née Black), and Narcissa Malfoy (née Black).

## Biography

### Early life (1901-1920)

Irma Wilhelmina Crabbe was born on 9 November, 1901, the eldest child of Joseph Crabbe and his wife Antoinette Crabbe (née Greengrass). She was born in Crabtree Manor, located somewhere in Sussex. She had a younger brother, Victor, born in 1905, and a younger sister, Flora, born in 1908.

From birth, Irma was a member of the Ancient House of Crabbe, who despite being excluded from the Sacred Twenty-Eight, probably looked down on any except "respectable" pure-blood wizards. It is unclear whether they believed in pure-blood supremacy, but judging from the members of her family that became Death Eaters in the late 20th Century, it is certainly possible. She was raised in a dark household and likely learned many tricks from her father before the age of eleven.

#### Hogwarts years (1913-1920)

She received her Hogwarts letter in the summer of 1913. That same summer, she visited Diagon Alley, located in London, and purchased a wand made of black walnut and dragon heartstring from Ollivander's Wand Shop. On 1 September, 1913, she boarded the train for Hogwarts and was sorted into Slytherin House that same night.

Little is known of Irma's Hogwarts years. She left the school in 1920, after the completion of her seventh year.

#### Marriage (1922)

Irma had been enjoying a casual relationship with a wizard called Pollux Black in her seventh year at school when she expressed her idea of a courtship. Pollux decided to agree, and it was arranged by their parents.

They married in June 1922, after a long engagement. Three years later, their first child was born on 25 May, 1925. They christened her Walburga Irma Black, and for some time enjoyed their time as a three person family unit. Pollux had gone into politics and he was high ranked in the Ministry of Magic by the time that their second child, Alphard Rigel Black, was born on 11 July, 1929.

#### Raising children (1930s-1940s)

Their third child, Cygnus Phineas Black, was born on 10 October, 1931. Pollux tried to raise Walburga, Alphard, and Cygnus in the same way that he was raised. Irma instructed them in German and Pollux instructed his children in French and Latin, at first, then delegating those responsibilities to a tutor when he no longer had the time. Walburga was taught to paint and had numerous other hobbies, while Cygnus liked to play on his broom. Alphard liked collecting small creatures which he kept in jars. He also liked to fish, with magic, that is. Pollux never understood Alphard's strange obsession with the outdoors but attempted to keep an open mind when his son would bring something crawly into the house. However, Irma would usually and very quickly exterminate it, and she would punish Alphard severely, for she couldn't stand such things.

#### Role as a grandmother (1950s-1960s)

Cygnus was the first to marry out of Irma's children: in 1949, he was arranged to marry the daughter of Irma's favourite maternal first cousin, Lucinda Rosier (née Yaxley). The witch's name was Druella Rosier (1930-1994), and though they were second cousins, Cygnus despised her. He tried all that he could to get out of the marriage but Irma insisted that they would make a lovely pair.

Druella was a very pretty blonde witch and Cygnus eventually gave up. Irma's first grandchild was born on 13 December, 1951, and the baby was christened Bellatrix Druella Black. The next year, his second quickly followed: Andromeda Olga, born 29 December 1952. Having satisfied the terms of their agreement, but not having produced a boy, the couple were obliged to try again, but the third would meet the limit of the agreement. Narcissa Anastasia was born on 19 July, 1955.

Irma's daughter Walburga married Pollux's cousin's son, Orion Black, on the suggestion of her father, Pollux. Orion, Arcturus's son and the Heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, 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.

Irma's daughter, on the other hand, had always been infatuated with her second cousin. Orion and Walburga married on 28 June, 1958. Much like Orion's 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.

Irma's fourth grandchild was born on 3 November, 1959. He was christened Sirius Orion, though Orion had become a father somewhat unwillingly. Sirius Orion Black's birth was celebrated in the Daily Prophet and many childhood photographs were shared with newspapers by Melania, Orion's mother.

Orion and Walburga's second child was born, on 23 April 1961. They christened him Regulus Arcturus, both in honour of Pollux's cousin Arcturus's brother, Regulus II (who had recently passed away in 1959), and Arcturus himself.

By this time, Irma's son Alphard was not married, and expressed no intention to. Her husband Pollux personally had always thought that Alphard, nicknamed "Alphie," by some of the kids (namely Sirius and Regulus) was a bit special. Alphard had taken up the mantle of restoring one of the old Black family properties- a small light keeper's cottage on the Isle of Skye, and had moved out of the manor in Tisbury to live a new life of seclusion out in the wilderness.

Alphard was also ill with Haemophilia B and preferred not to pass that down to any children, if he had any. It was suspected that the disease had taken root with the Crabbes and a specific branch of Rosiers, and by extension, Greengrasses, which was the direct maternal line that Irma herself had come from. Druella Rosier, by consequence, was also a member of this direct maternal line, and they would later learn that she had made at least her daughter Narcissa a carrier.

#### Incident and divorce of youngest son (1963)

In 1963, Cygnus and Druella attempted to duel each other to the death. It was not known what caused the intense firestorm of anger that was unleashed, only that they could not stay together anymore. Andromeda, then eleven, and Narcissa, aged eight, bore witness to the duel which left Druella in hospital for a week. They separated after that, citing irreconcilable differences. Druella left the manor and all three of her children and did not even demand to see them. Irma's granddaughter Bellatrix became prone to throwing insane tantrums and demanding that she go live with her mother, who would teach her dark magic, but even Druella didn't want to see her.

#### Incident on the Isle of Skye (1966)

At Christmas, 1966, Irma's son Alphard invited Sirius, seven, and Regulus, five, to his island to stay in his cottage in Skye, where there was a terrible storm and Orion and Walburga returned without speaking to each other. There had seemed to be an incident on the island where Walburga endangered Sirius's life because she didn't know what she was doing. Orion had gone out to look for her, and Alphard fished all three of them out from the mudflats with his boat.

### First Wizarding War (1970-1981)

The early effects of First Wizarding War had taken hold around Irma: 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, Nobby Leach left office for mysterious health reasons, leading to a conspiracy theory that he had been poisoned by his Muggle-prejudice advisor Abraxas Malfoy.

Leach was then replaced as Minister for 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 all of the Death Eaters belonged, increasingly felt that their very way of life was being threatened. Irma was likely one such individual. 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.

#### Sirius's Sorting (1971)

Irma's grandson, 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. Irma and her daughter Walburga were the most angered by Sirius's sorting, and wanted to disown him, but Arcturus, the Head, having succeeded his father in 1952, talked them down and refused to do so. Arcturus was certainly disappointed that Sirius hadn't made the noble house of Slytherin, but his approach was pragmatic, and the family took no action. Arcturus saw Pollux's daughter as extreme and told her so. Pollux agreed with him.

#### The War (1970s)

In 1969, Voldemort began to gather support and lead marches in wizarding areas, and the group called themselves the "Knights of Walpurgis" in the early years, and preached ideas about pureblood supremacy.

Some members of her family as well as Irma herself had already been radicalised by the chaos. Irma's daughter, Walburga, began to say that the Knights of Walpurgis had the right ideas at the dinner table. When Irma began preaching his ideals, Pollux found out and was extremely blasé.

Voldemort launched a revolution against the British Ministry of Magic with the intention of toppling it and 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.

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.

Irma's granddaughter, 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, Irma likely read about Eugenia Jenkins getting ousted as Minister Of Magic, and get replaced by Harold Minchum, a hardliner who placed more Dementors around Azkaban. In addition, ruthless Council of Magical Law Head Judge Bartemius "Barty" 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.

#### A Semi-Disowned Grandson (1976)

The next year, in 1976, Irma's grandson Sirius ran away from home. Pollux and Irma arrived at Grimmauld Place only to find an utterly heartbroken Walburga, whose anger had grown. She planned to disown Sirius completely and disinherit him from ever becoming head of the House of Black. Arcturus, Head of the House, still maintained his refusal to disown Sirius.

#### The War Again (1970s)

Irma's other grandson, Regulus, aged 15, became the defacto Black heir following Sirius's flight. Irma and Pollux returned to their home in Cornwall and time passed. 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 his 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. Pollux did not have any idea of this until Regulus announced proudly during a visit to his residence that he had joined the Dark Lord. At first, Pollux was not sure of what to feel. He was ultimately pleased and thanked Regulus for doing what he could not. Irma, on the other hand, was incredibly proud of her grandson for taking such actions.

#### Death of Grandson (1979)

When Regulus went missing, like so many others had, Irma stayed at Grimmauld Place with her daughter and made posters for the Daily Prophet. Regulus had not yet finished school, and had not even sat his N.E.W.T.s before he died at seventeen- ten days before his eighteenth birthday. Regulus was Irma's favourite grandson, and it was a terrible blow to her when he passed away.

She and Pollux returned to the Summer House after the funeral, where Pollux handcrafted an honourary grave for their grandson, among the stones in the old graveyard on the estate. It read, "***Regulus Arcturus Black***, *Born 23 April 1961 he was taken from us at seventeen. Beloved son, and friend: we who loved you will watch for you in the night sky; for surely you will race across the heavens faster than any star."*

#### Third Grandson (1980)

Near the end of April, 1979, Irma's daughter, Walburga, discovered that she was pregnant. She had not touched her husband for several years before that, and Orion ordered her to get rid of it, but Walburga refused. Granted, because Sirius would not come back and their younger son had passed away, the Black family could have used another heir, but it is likely that their third child was not intended for this purpose. Rather, their third child was more likely an accident. Irma and Pollux, as well as Arcturus and Melania, were skeptical and expected that due to the stress and grief in losing Regulus, the foetus would not survive. However, it did.

Walburga gave birth to a baby boy, who she named Altair Regulus, on 7 January 1980. Irma, Pollux, Arcturus, and Melania welcomed the new life with more skepticism, as they believed that Walburga and Orion would not be fit to raise another child. Orion was already severely depressed and had been for quite some time, and although Walburga threw herself into raising Altair, she had also somewhat succumbed to alcoholism at the time.

#### The War (1980)

The war raged around them. On 12 January, 1980, Minister Minchum was also removed from office due to his failure to end the war and was immediately replaced with Millicent Bagnold. The Order of the Phoenix, a secret organisation created to fight the Dark Lord, suffered badly and skirmishes picked up at a rapid pace. Irma nor Pollux cared to hear Sirius's name on the radio, and they may have secretly hoped they *would* hear his name, if it was any consolation over Regulus's death.

#### Fourth Granddaughter (1980)

When Walburga became pregnant a second time, in March 1980, Arcturus understandably put his foot down, believing that Walburga had coerced his son into conceiving two more children through magic- likely the Imperius Curse or something similar. Pollux refused to believe that his daughter had done any of those things and demanded an explanation, and there was an explosive argument between them, which Irma witnessed.

Pollux had also considered that Altair may have well and truly been an accident, but after Walburga announced that she was, again, expecting, just two months after she had given birth to the baby boy, Arcturus was furious. He sent Walburga to stay with her Irma at the Summer House, along with the baby, and ordered his son to tell him whether he had planned any of this with Walburga. Orion had not, and seemed confused and not entirely lucid at the time. Arcturus deduced that Walburga had definitely done something, perhaps in desperation, grief, or madness, and along with Pollux, determined that it would be best to keep them apart.

Irma's seventh grandchild, and fourth granddaughter, Aquila Walburga, was born on 4 November, 1980, in the same year as Altair, though the two children were almost eleven months apart. She was born only a day after Sirius had been, though twenty-one years after the fact. Orion stayed at Grimmauld Place for some time, but Walburga returned there when Aquila was but a few days old. The newborn baby was thought to have looked like Orion and Sirius by Melania, who quickly fell in love with her only granddaughter. Altair, however, was close to the spitting image of Regulus and Pollux and Irma adored him, and most all did, including, begrudgingly, Arcturus and Orion. Though Orion hadn't wanted either of them, much like he hadn't wanted Sirius and Regulus at first, he began to seem happier, slowly.

#### The War Again (1981)

Meanwhile, in the Ministry, Barty Crouch Senior issued an edict in July 1981, giving Ministry Aurors full permission to employ the use of the Unforgivable Curses against their enemies. A massive Ministry campaign, spearheaded and led by Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shackelbolt, Otto Cattermole, and Frank Longbottom; ensued, immediately turining the tide of the war against the Death Eaters. They initially focused their efforts on resisting the giants, killing many of them with the Killing Curse, and wiping out entire tribes until they forced the survivors to go into hiding.

The Ministry began to identify and apprehend Death Eaters. Auror and Order member Alastor Moody became legendary for his successes, arresting and capturing Igor Karkaroff, along with many other supporters of the Dark Lord, and also killing Evan Rosier when he resisted arrest, although losing a chunk of his nose in the process. Antonin Dolohov also met his capture and imprisonment at the hands of Magical Law Enforcement Squad and Corban Yaxley, one of Voldemort's earliest followers, and one of Irma's cousins, was captured and sent to Azkaban as well.

#### Voldemort's Defeat (1981)

On 31 October, 1981, Voldemort traveled to the Godric's Hollow with the intention of murdering the Potter family for unknown reasons, and there met his downfall. Irma was shocked, the rest of the Blacks were shocked, and the entire Wizarding World was shocked when, leaderless, Death Eaters began to fall left and right.

### Between the Wars (1981-1989)

In the aftermath of Voldemort's shockingly abrupt defeat and subsequent disappearance without a trace, many were skeptical that he was really dead. Aurors, Order members, and Ministry officials searched at home and abroad for any sign of him but found none. Although they eventually came to the conclusion that Voldemort had truly been defeated and was dead, many Death Eaters were still at large and considered a huge threat.

#### Arrest of Bellatrix Lestrange (1981)

Irma was entirely unsurprised when Bellatrix was arrested along with her husband, Rodolphus, and brother-in-law, Rabastan, on 2 November, 1981, for torturing an Auror and his wife into insanity. She and Pollux did not attempt to help her, for they probably felt that she deserved what she got, and had always viewed her (like the rest of their family) from the age of twenty as a somewhat psychotic menace.

Irma visited Grimmauld Place that night with her husband Pollux and spent time with her younger grandchildren, grateful, but not entirely reassured, because it appeared that with the end of Voldemort, the conflict was almost over. If Bellatrix could have been arrested, then it truly meant it was over.

#### Arrest of Sirius Black (1981)

However, another event that took place within that week was enough to shock Irma and Pollux to their core. Their grandson, whom Pollux still cared about, though he was separated from the family, had been arrested and thrown into Azkaban, in a cell next to their beloved granddaughter Bellatrix for betraying the Potters to Voldemort as well as on the count of the murder of twelve muggles and a wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew.

Walburga and Orion were left shocked and horrified that they had disowned a son that had ended up supporting all the "right" values in the end. Walburga, at least, could have been proud of him, but she also did not want to acknowledge him at all.

Pollux and Irma were comforted by the fact that Sirius had finally chosen to come back to them, if not physically. They were confused, however, when Pollux came to visit him in Azkaban (Arcturus had somehow refused, and neither Melania, Orion, Walburga, nor Irma were going anywhere *near* that place), he told him to "fuck off." Pollux could have begun to suspect that his grandson was truly innocent of the crimes he was thrown into Azkaban for, but he did not think that far ahead, and simply believed that his grandson was just being his grandson, as colloquially rude as always.

#### Death (1989)

Irma Black passed away on 2 December, 1989, at the age of 88. Her cause of death was natural as her health began to fail her. Pollux was by her side in Cornwall when she died.

#### Post-mortem

The following obituary was published in the Daily Prophet after her death. *"Irma Black (née Crabbe), beloved wife of Pollux Black, departed from this life Saturday evening... She is survived by her two adult children, Cygnus Black IV, aged 58, and Walburga Black, wife of Orion Black, the Heir to the House of Black, as well as four grandchildren and a great-grandson. Among her four grandchildren are the lady Narcissa Malfoy (née Black), daughter of Cygnus, and her sister Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black), who was imprisoned in Azkaban following the war... as well as Altair Black, heir apparent to the House of Black, and Aquila Black, both aged nine. Her great-grandson, Draco Malfoy, is heir to the House of Malfoy. She is reunited in death with her parents, Joseph and Antoinette Crabbe (née Greengrass), as well as her most-beloved grandson, Regulus Black, who was lost in the war... services will be held... (cont'd)"* (not mentioned: her disowned son, Alphard Black, her disowned grandson, Sirius Black, or her disowned granddaughter, Andromeda Tonks née Black).

On 10 January, 1989, Pollux buried his wife inside Blackmere Cemetery inside the grounds of The Summer House, where they had both lived in their elderly years. This was the first official burial there since Misapinoa Black was laid to rest in 1867- although Pollux had contstructed an honourary grave for Regulus, it had been empty. Irma's epitaph was chosen by Pollux, and it said, "*I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness".*

Additionally, Irma's son, Alphard, rests outside the cemetery gates. His epitaph reflects his disowned status: ***Alphard Rigel*** (11 Jul. 1929 - 28 Aug. 1977) "*An unfortunate but good man".*

Pollux followed Irma into death a year later, in October of 1990. At his request, he was buried beside her inside the gates of Blackmere Cemetary. Though rundown, the couple share a large white tombstone, and below Pollux's name reads the epitaph "*Reunited".*

## Etymology

*Irma* is a German short form of names beginning with the Old Germanic element *ermen*, meaning "whole" or "universal".

Her last name is probably a variation of *crab*, a small, round crustacean with two large claws in front, or informal English for a grumpy person.