Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)/Headscratchers/Sirius and Grimmauld Place

Please check JK's FAQs before asking a question that may have already been answered.

Sirius inherited his family's house, even though his mother Walburga disowned him. Why would she leave everything to her disowned son instead of relatives in good standing like Bellatrix or Narcissa?
- Probably for similar reasons that Sirius - a convicted, escaped criminal - could freely access his Gringotts account: the folks in charge of such things don't particularly care.
  - Real-world banks quite cheerfully obey written instructions sent by mail to transfer money from a depositor's account to anywhere the depositor says with the only ID verification required being the depositor's signature. It's called a 'personal check'.
- Well, when did she die? Assuming it was after his incarceration, they probably put him back into their will because he "redeemed" himself enough in their eyes. What with "being a Death Eater, killing a loyal friend of James Potter, as well as 12 Muggles." If it was before, I stand just as baffled.
- Where I come from, children always have the right to inherit from their parents, regardless of what the parents think of it. Why shouldn't there be a similar law in the wizarding world?
- Did it go through her? I thought it went Walburga > Regulus > Sirius > Harry.
  - Except Regulus died before his mother. Kreacher says so in Book 7, how she was heartbroken but Kreacher couldn't explain what happened coz Regulus forbade him to.
  - One, Kreacher's insane, and two, he's a known liar.
    - Harry commanded him to tell the truth.
    - Could Kreacher have been referring to Mrs. Black's portrait?
  - Another possible theory is that the Black family traditions are archaic enough that the head of the family must always be male, at which point the job lands on Sirius the instant Regulus dies.
    - Sirius inherited the house and everything else because he was the eldest living male Black, which family tradition decrees is all that's necessary to get everything.
- Possibly inheritance law doesn't work for Wizards as it does for Muggles. Dumbledore was concerned that, despite the fact that Sirius had left all his worldly possessions to Harry, it was possible that he wasn't able to inherit as a half-blood. Magic seems to be woven throughout every aspect of Wizarding life; it's very possible that Sirius's inheritance was simply unavoidable because of some centuries-old forgotten spell. Remember that this is the same series that features a binding magical contract in book four.
  - Hilariously, Sirius might have inherited the family fortune because he was sent to Azkaban. In other words, his family un-disowned him after it was publicly believed that Sirius had switched his allegiance to Voldemort and betrayed the Potters to him. (Remember, the only people at this point in time who know for certain who the traitor was are Sirius himself, the disembodied evil spirit, and the guy hiding in the rat cage.)
    - Except that's not what happened, as Kreacher himself makes it clear that Sirius never went back in his parents' good books. He mentions repeatedly how Sirius "broke his mother's heart with his lawless ways" but never mentions Sirius having re-gained his parents' good standing.
      - Well, this is Kreacher we're talking about. You really think he'd so much as mention anything good that Sirius might have done?
        If he was back in the family's good graces? I think Kreacher would have treated Sirius as a member of the family instead of a dishonored rogue.
      - This sounds like Sirius-fan-talk to me. Harry and his friends have the same 'lawless ways' as Sirius, and have no respect for anyone in the family other than Sirius (and then Regulus). They're fighting against Voldemort and Hermione is a Muggle-born. If Kreacher cared so much about the 'honor' of the family, he would not help them any more than their direct orders required, like with Sirius, and may have even openly betrayed them. The difference is that they treat Kreacher with kindness where Sirius's terrible memories of his life in that house caused him to treat Kreacher with abuse, in spite of usually being kind to House Elves (according to Dumbledore, who also said "I do not think that Sirius took me very seriously, or that he ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's."). Yes, Sirius did not hate House Elves on principle, but he was terrible to Kreacher, which is why Kreacher hated him. I'd hate someone who treated me that way, too, regardless of how they treated others. Harry can easily forgive Sirius these things because Kreacher is indoctrinated with purist propaganda and because he loves Sirius and knows Sirius's redeeming qualities, but that stuff will never matter to the victim of the abuse, who will not forgive the wrongs done to them just because Sirius is nice to others.
- Just because Bellatrix shared Mrs. Black's political views about Muggle-borns doesn't have to mean they liked each other. Walburga seems to have been a shrewish, judgmental bitch, so she might well have hated all her relatives for one reason or another.
  - Plus, it was implied that while the Blacks were pureblood supremacists who initially supported Voldemort, they backed out when they found out how crazy his plans really were. It's possible that Sirius's mother thought Bellatrix and the Malfoys were too crazy. Or, she could have ended up just as demented as her portrait suggested and thus wasn't fit to change her will at all.
- Do we know for sure that Mrs. Black had a will? If not, then presumably Sirius would have inherited as her next of kin, no matter how she felt about it.
  - This is probably what actually happened. Some time after Regulus's death, Walpurga died unexpectedly. Either her husband had died by that point (knowing the Black family, it's not too far of a stretch!) or Wizarding law does not recognize spouses as next-of-kin. So, basically, with Regulus dead and Orion out of the picture, the house automatically went to Sirius. Because Sirius was in prison, nobody else would get the house until Sirius died and THEN it would go to either Bellatrix (also in prison for life), Andromeda (also disowned, though this doesn't matter), or Narcissa. However, Sirius knew there was a good chance he was going to die early, so he wrote a will after he got out of prison, and obviously the headquarters for the Order needed to go to someone who wasn't a Death Eater.

Was he disowned? We know he was blasted off the Tapestry but if that was done after his father was dead, it's possible as a woman she wasn't able to change who inherits. I'm not saying it's definitely the case, I could be wrong, afterall, everyone else here seems to have brought up valid points. Does it say he was disowned? Just wondering cause I don't remember that.

There isn't any information on the legal process that could have followed, but there was a pretty obvious "Sirius is no son of mine vibe." That said, it looks like wizards in England use the same rules of inheritance as muggles: Your possessions go to whoever you name in the will, or to your legal heirs otherwise. An ancient pureblood family like the Blacks would probably have never used a will, since their always evil enough to please the family and thus state in their parents' good graces. Sirius was a wildcard who so surprised the family that they probably didn't think to disinherit him. Of course, the disownership notion might be overblown - they might have always hoped that Sirius would come back to the family, and it's only the portrait (which doesn't contain the actual soul and thoughts of the person, just the artist's impression) and Kreacher that think Sirius was well and truly no longer a Black.
Since Walburga Black was clearly slipping well into dementia towards the end, she might very well have sincerely believed that she had disowned Sirius—forgetting that she didn't actually have the authority to do so, and that it would be her husband's decision as head of the family. And Orion Black apparently did not write Sirius out of his will, given that Sirius inherited everything.

Back to the main Headscratchers page

Back to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)