The Tree of Blacks (English version)

Prologue

18th June 1998. Grimmauld Place

It was a quiet, sunny day in the district of Grimmauld Place, in London. Summer was around the corner and children were jauntily playing in the street.

There was nothing about that ordinary place to suggest that strange and mysterious things hid themselves behind the gray, crumbling houses facades of that area of the city.

Or at least, nothing for the adults who lived there. However, same wasn't true for the children who lived in Grimmauld Place. In fact, it is known that kids are able to see things that are usually invisible or supposed to be fantastic, unrealistic for adults.

There was a pretty famous legend in Grimmauld Place, about a mysterious house that every child in the district was sure it was concealed, hidden from human being's sight. Every little boy and girl believed that they were looking at a haunted house, crawling with ghosts and any other sort of terrifying creatures.

That legend had arisen from a peculiar detail about the house numbers of the street. From a missing house number, to be exact. The number twelve, to be even more exact.
If you were standing outside number eleven and looked to the left, you could easily see the number ten, and it made sense. However, if you looked to the right, there would be no number twelve, but number thirteen.

All the adults of the neighbourhood were absolutely sure that it was nothing more than an insignificant human mistake. Children, instead, were convinced it smelt like the work of a ghost or a witch who secretly lived there, in their same district.

A test of courage was even organised to verify the actual presence of somekind of magic, behind the strange lack of the number twelve of Grimmauld Place.
The test of courage simply consisted of throwing a stone and hitting the dark, grayish, empty facade between number eleven and number thirteen.

Obviously, nothing usually happened, except for the old neighbours' threatening reproofs, coming out through the windows around.  Nevertheless, every now and then, some kid swore he had seen a little window appearing on the shabby wall, with a disturbing, dark child silhouette behind the glass.

It was a quiet, sunny day in Grimmauld Place and a small handful of giggling children was standing in front of the empty facade between number eleven and thirteen, as always. The old people, who lived in the flats nearby, snorted annoyed while looking at the kids with suspicion.

But the old neighbours of the houses number eleven and thirteen in Grimmauld Place were not the only ones bothered by the situation.

Someone else was looking in the same way at those noisy kids, who kept throwing stones against the old walls of the big flat, the hidden number twelve of Grimmauld Place. That is, the house of one of the most ancient and illustrious families, known in the magic world: the House of Black.

Kreacher, a small creature as old and grayish as the building itself inside he lived, scampered around the rooms, muttering insults towards the little, nasty Muggles brats, who were standing down the street outside.
Kreacher was the house-elf of the House of Black, an ancient and famous family of wizards and witches, living in Great Britain. Or, he had been their house-elf, to be exact. All the Black family members were dead, in fact. No heir had survived to keep the illustrious family name alive.

Kreacher entered the sumptuous living room of the number twelve of Grimmauld Place, in order to tidy up and clean. The whole room was in the darkness, except for one shy ray of light, that filtered through the high windows, always cloaked by black and heavy curtains.

All the elf's intentions of cleaning disappeared when his gaze rested on the wall in front of him, barely lit by the sunlight. He walked across the dark room to where a huge tapestry hung the length of the wall. It looked immensely old and it portrayed the whole Black family tree, dating back to the Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read: