Grimmauld Place

[o_caipora]

No: HPFGUIDX 75492

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Donna" <deemarie1a at y...> wrote:
> Just curious, but what happens to Grimmauld Place now?  Who 
inherits?

If the heir is someone who's already been named in the books, the 
only candidate is . . . Draco Malfoy!

The house is almost certainly "entailed": some old Black's will left 
it, on condition that it not leave the family. The usual conditions 
are that it go to the closest male relative by blood. The Blacks may 
have insisted on closest "pure blood". 

Despite Sirius's mother's dislike for him, he inherited the house. 
His mother wiped him from the tapestry. That she did not disinherit 
him may mean she could not. 

He would probably have inherited on his father's death. His mother 
continued there because a) Sirius didn't want to live at Grimmauld 
place and b) other lodgings were being provided for him at Government 
expense. 

Entailment is popular in Victorian novels, where distant cousins are 
always inheriting, or distant uncles dying and leaving fortunes. In 
the prologue to the Canterbury tales, the Sergeant of the Law is 
skilled in getting property out from under such restrictions. It's 
old, in life and in books.

Sirius is the "last of the Blacks." His brother is dead. For cousins 
the tapestry shows Bellatrix, [Andromeda], and Narcissa, probably in 
order of age and therefore precedence.

The tapestry shows no descendants, male or otherwise, for Bellatrix, 
who might in any event be disbarred from inheriting from Sirius 
because she killed him.

No children are mentioned for Andromeda, but marrying a Muggle-born 
may have disqualified her heirs under the entailment. After 
all, "Always Pure" is embroidered at the at the top of the family 
tree tapestry.

A real-world example is that when the grandson of the last emperor of 
Brazil married not a princess but a simple countess, his mother 
Princess Isabel made him sign a document abdicating all right to the 
throne for him and all his descendents. If real royalty can insist on 
royal blood to inherit, "almost royal" Blacks can certainly insist on 
pure blood.  

That leaves Narcissa, who has one male descendant, Draco Malfoy. 

Draco inherits.

 - Caipora