There was a room inside the portrait, too, laid out exactly like the room Matthew stood in.
The furnishings were somewhat different, however, and the room in the portrait was clean and comfortable.
Phineas Black sat in a chair inside the portrait, now holding a stemmed glass.
Phineas Black poured half a glass of amber liquor. "Matthew, do you know what has allowed the Black family to endure for over a thousand years?"
"Unity and love?" Matthew could not help chuckling at his own answer.
"Pfft—" Phineas Black choked and sprayed out the liquor he had just taken into his mouth.
"Ahem—" Phineas Black coughed a few times, took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and wiped his mouth. "I'm very glad you think so. Our Black family is indeed one big, united, loving family."
Matthew pursed his lips. Oh, wonderfully united and loving. My father was killed by his own cousin.
Phineas Black picked up his glass again and gently swirled the liquor. "The Black family is the oldest and most conservative of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. The oldest is easy enough to understand—we simply have the longest lineage. But the most conservative..."
Phineas Black paused.
"I don't know whether your grandfather Alfat ever told you—all Blacks who married Muggle men or Muggle girls were struck from the family tree."
"Of course, I'm not saying this because I have anything against you."
"Rather, it concerns a secret of the Black family."
"The two founding Black ancestors were magical prodigies like you, with extraordinary talent for the Shapeshifting Technique."
"They were exceptionally gifted and defeated countless opponents with their masterful Shapeshifting Technique."
"For several generations after them, the Blacks continued to inherit that talent. They were all founders of the Black family's legacy."
"But after that, fewer and fewer descendants of