"Kreacher, did you need something?" After finishing his conversation with Phineas Black, Matthew had been about to explore the Black ancestral home he had just inherited. He opened the door and found the House-elf waiting outside.
Matthew sensed a new bond between himself and the House-elf. He was now the head of the Black family, and its contract with the House-elf had naturally passed to him.
"Master..." The elderly House-elf hesitated. "Please allow me to show you around the house."
"I was hoping to look around," Matthew said with a smile.
Kreacher led Matthew through the Black ancestral home. Excluding the attic, the old house had five floors. The rooms on the third floor and above were used as bedrooms or storage rooms.
Matthew had met the former occupants of two rooms on the fifth floor when he was little.
They were Sirius Black and his younger brother, Regulus Black. They were Matthew's uncles, cousins of his father.
But according to Matthew's grandfather, Alfat Black, the brothers had never gotten along very well.
Matthew had later pieced together part of the reason from scraps he had heard from Professor Snape. The rift between Sirius Black and Matthew's father seemed to have begun with Professor Snape.
That dispute between the older generation had not carried over to Matthew.
When Matthew's parents died, Sirius Black had not yet been sent to Azkaban. Back then, he often came to see Matthew with treats, though he kept forgetting that a one- or two-year-old could not have alcohol. The sweets he brought were the liquor-flavored ones he ate himself.
Matthew remembered him as an utterly unreliable uncle.
Regulus Black, meanwhile, had been influenced by Pure-blood Supremacy and refused to associate with Matthew's father.
Matthew had met him only once, at his parents' funeral.
He remembered