Walburga Black was raised in the ancestral home. The House of Black at 12 Grimmauld Place was in her mind a beautiful place, grand and glorious for all its gothic quirks. She was content to live there forever, but her parents made it quite clear that although she was the oldest, she would not be inheriting 12 Grimmauld Place. As a woman, it was her duty to marry into and continue on a pureblood line. However, she would be continuing her husband’s family line, not the Black family’s. Therefore, the family home was to go to Alphard as the oldest son. Walburga had always hated her brother and his peculiar mannerisms, and she couldn’t stand the idea of him taking away her house, especially when he tried to make her feel better by insisting he didn’t want it anyway. So Walburga did what any sensible witch would do in her situation.

She married her cousin.

By marrying Orion, she kept her family name, ensured at least one branch of the Black family' stayed pure, and reinforced her own claim to 12 Grimmauld Place. Alphard gave up his stake for it without a fuss, and Cygnus had always been sensible enough to know when his sister would win. She kept her home and had a husband to whom she could always speak her mind.

Once the two had been married and moved into the home Walburga had never had to move out of, Walburga and Orion got to work on the next set of expectations. Walburga didn’t particularly like the idea of motherhood, but it was her duty and had been part of the deal to keep the house.

After a few years of trying, however, the couple realized that something was gravely amiss. They summoned a very discreet healer to solve the issue, and Walburga nearly hexed him when he said there was little he could do. He explained that some of the issues she’d always had with menstruation had hinted at her problem with carrying a baby. It was possible that Walburga could carry a child to term, but it would take a lot of pain, many potions, and a great deal of luck besides. He recommended they consider their other options.

They knew they couldn’t do anything local, and most of the options he’d recommended were unlikely and very indiscreet. A pureblood baby up for adoption was unlikely in the UK and untrustable from another country where an orphanage might say anything to get them to take a child. Besides, the matter was more difficult than just finding a child they could pretend was biologically theirs. Walburga—and Orion too to a less extent—felt passionate that they could not let the Black family line die. Yes, Cygnus was now married and had just been blessed with a third child, but they were all girls. Some blessing.

Walburga and Orion turned their consideration toward another option the healer had suggested: surrogacy.

Orion had been uncertain at first, concerned that his wife would change her mind about allowing him to sleep with someone else. For Walburga, though, it seemed to offer a lot of wonderful benefits, and if someone else dealing with her husband for a little while was one of them, well, she wouldn’t voice the concern aloud.

They made a plan. The two staged a trip abroad together, but Walburga didn’t go. She trusted Orion to make a suitable pureblood choice and to bring her back before the pregnancy ended. Walburga stayed isolated inside her house, but she didn’t mind. She loved her house. She never wanted to leave it anyway, and an excuse to stay there exclusively for a little while sounded heavenly.

Perhaps she should have gone, Walburga realized in hindsight. While Walburga had sat at home musing about whether Elladora or Belvina would be a better namesake for a daughter, Orion had been led astray in his choice by beauty. He claimed that finding a pureblood witch who looked like Walburga and was willing to carry a child she wouldn’t keep was too much to expect. Walburga would have expected him to come home empty-handed, not with his hand on the shoulder of some pretty Beauxbatons dropout hard on her luck.

The girl—for she was barely old enough to be considered anything else—had been disowned by her family and was willing to do whatever Orion wished as long as he paid her for it.

“That makes her a whore,” Walburga had hissed.

“That makes her sensible,” Orion had argued.

The nineteen-year-old was stunningly beautiful, and her hair did somewhat resemble Walburga’s hair. But her glowing olive skin would never produce a child that could pass for Walburga’s.

“You worry too much,” Orion murmured against Walburga’s hair, trying to soothe his wife’s anger. “No one would call us on it. Besides, the girl is so docile. We could probably keep her here, hide her away until we’re ready for another child. I bet she’d stay.”

Walburga’s eyes had flashed as her husband proposed keeping a mistress in Walburga’s own home, but she’d said nothing. Instead Walburga waited until the baby had been born before taking him from the room, naming him after Orion’s grandfather and her great uncle, depositing him with Orion momentarily, and returning to the girl’s room to slit her throat the muggle way. Walburga did have to admit some things were more satisfying by hand.

Orion’s prediction turned out to be true that no one would dare suggest the child didn’t belong to both of them. If any whispers happened behind closed doors, Walburga wasn’t listening at the fire to find out. She was too content in her own little world as she attempted to mother a baby.

Sirius was a horridly fussy baby who screamed and cried and carried on, and nothing Walburga did seemed to calm him down. Only the family house elf seemed to have a way with him, and Orion quickly grew to resent that the elf caring for their baby meant that he and Walburga had to do more things for themselves. In Orion’s frustration, he planned another trip abroad to take care of some business. Walburga didn’t bother to hide her resentment at him leaving her alone with the child, especially now that he was starting to walk and getting into things like mad.

The trip was meant to last two months. When Orion had been gone for three, Walburga didn’t think much of it. When he’d been gone for four, she sent a howler.

That got him home fairly quickly, although Orion arrived in the dead of night, once again with his arm around some floozy’s shoulder. That wasn’t the worst of it. Orion had gotten her pregnant, this time an accident instead of a planned surrogacy, and this witch was Korean.

Walburga lost it. She started screaming and cursing right there in the entryway, furious that Orion would be unfaithful, furious that this girl hadn’t been smart enough to avoid a child, and furious that Orion’s wandering eye hadn’t picked someone who looked like her. She threatened the girl with the Cruciatus, only avoiding it because Orion got in the middle and started yelling back. In her anger, she threatened to hex him too and in a different way. What good was his manhood to her if it couldn’t even give her a child correctly?

Eventually Orion managed to placate his wife enough that she didn’t kill the girl, but it was tempting. He tried to shield her from the same fate Sirius’ mother had suffered; however, when Walburga’s eyes flashed during the girl’s labor and she’d told him to walk away, Orion had listened. This one didn’t want to give up her baby, but she didn’t have much choice in the matter. She did force Walburga to deal with things in a slightly different order. She killed the birth mother first, then named him after Orion’s uncle and carried him to Orion.

Regulus wasn’t as easy a pill to swallow as Sirius had been for the pureblood community, but when Orion insisted both were pureblood, no one questioned it. They did start to whisper about a potential affair leading to Regulus, and “Come to think of it, Sirius doesn’t really follow the Black family looks, does he?” Walburga hated it, and as Sirius grew older and began to act out, she blamed him and his heritage for every little thing.

Sirius was just five when he innocently asked his mother why he and Regulus didn’t look alike. She let loose, screaming at him about his father’s incompetency and admitting neither boy was hers. She even went far enough to admit that she’d killed “the harlots” who had carried them and threatening Sirius that if either boy ever stepped out of line, she wasn’t afraid to do the same to them. Traumatized, Sirius had fled upstairs to Regulus’ room, and Walburga let him go, her anger momentarily sated.

Upstairs Sirius openly sobbed as he clung tight to his toddler brother and decided right then that if she was ever going to hurt one of them like that, it should be him. He had to protect Regulus at all costs, no matter what happened to himself in the process.