Three Black sisters on a tree

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 106729

In OotP, Ch. 6, we get a peek at the Black family tree. Most of it is 
pretty vague, but interestingly JKR makes sure to relay the exact 
position of the three Black sisters: Andromeda, Bellatrix and 
Narcissa. Here is the relevant canon:


----------------------------------
"You and Tonks are related?" Harry asked, surprised.

"Oh, yeah, her mother Andromeda was my favourite cousin", said 
Sirius, examining the tapestry closely. "No, Andromeda's not on here 
either, look — "

He pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, 
Bellatrix and Narcissa.   
----------------------------------
Harry, however, did not laugh; he was too busy staring at the names 
to the right of Andromeda's burn mark. A double line of gold 
embroidery linked Narcissa Black with Lucius Malfoy and a single 
vertical gold line from their names led to the name Draco.
----------------------------------
But Harry was now looking at the name to the left of Andromeda's 
burn: Bellatrix Black, which was connected by a double line to 
Rodolphus Lestrange.
----------------------------------



Based on the above information we know exactly how this small portion 
of the tree looks like:


R===B   A   N===L
              !
              D


Legend:

R) Rudolphus Lestrange

B) Bellatrix Black 

A) Andromeda Black (burned)

N) Narcissa Black

L) Lucius Malfoy

D) Draco

Note: if you got Draco as Andromeda'a son (oh, horror!) it's because 
you use an uneven font like "Times New Roman". You need to convert it 
to an even font like "Courier New" and then Draco will properly 
appear as Narcissa and Lucius's son.

Sirius also tells us that Andromeda married the muggle-born Ted Tonks 
and they had Nymphadora (who prefers to be known by her surname 
only), but this information does not appear on the tree, since 
Andromeda's name was burned for her sins.

>From the above we can conclude that the names of the three sisters 
were probably embroidered on the tapestry a short time after their 
birth in the order:

   B   A   N

with the two properly-pureblood husbands, Rudolphus and Lucius, added 
after the weddings. 

This order strongly suggests to me that Bella is the older sister 
(thus naturally the dominant), Andromeda is the median (thus 
naturally the oddball) and Narcissa is the youngest (the pampered and 
spoiled one. I humbly apologize if any of the members were offended 
by the above stereotypes. We don't have much information to go by 
here). Now, I don't know anything about traditional genealogy, but 
family trees I've seen on the web almost always follow the convention 
of listing siblings from left to right according to their age. The 
rare exception seems to be when the siblings are not of the same sex 
and then sometime the younger brothers might push older sisters 
rightward (presumably because they're higher in line for the 
succession). But this exception does not hold in our case where all 
the siblings are females. For several examples of nobility family 
trees see:

http://www.begent.net/history/windsor.htm

http://www.beaconsfield.derwentside.org.uk/Family%20tree.jpg

http://www.madamedepompadour.com/images/mdp/genealog/mdp_gene.jpg

http://www.btinternet.com/~sbishop100/vicchld2.jpg

http://www.skirrow.com/famhi.gif

So if wizards follow muggle conventions in this, and if JKR's editors 
didn't mess up the right order (again!), we can conclude that Bella 
is the oldest, then Andromeda, then Narcissa. 

Now I properly credit Carol for first posting that Bellatrix is 3 yrs 
older than Sirius (and thus also the other Marauders, Lily and 
Snape). This follows from Sirius telling Harry: "I haven't seen her 
since I was your age, unless you count a glimpse of her coming into 
Azkaban." Since Harry had just turned 15 at this point, it seems 
Sirius was in his forth (or possibly fifth) year at Hogwarts when 
Bella was in her seventh year.

This age creates a problem in my reconstruction regarding Andromeda. 
Even if Andromeda is younger than Bella by only a year, then she's 2 
years older than Sirius, Lily and James. Lily and James had Harry 
when they were only 20 or 21 at most (according to the Lexicon). At 
the beginning of OotP Harry is 15 and Tonks must be at least 21 
(because she had qualified as an Auror "a year ago", and Auror 
training takes 3 yrs). If I didn't mess this calculation somewhere, 
this means that Andromeda gave birth to Tonks when she was at most 
17. Perhaps we can stretch it to 18. Not impossible, but problematic. 
She could have met Ted at Hogwarts, get knocked up (behind the 
greenhouses, perhaps?) and elope with him immediately after 
graduating, or even before. I wonder if the Blacks were more 
scandalized by this, or by the fact that Ted was a m*dblood. BTW, 
Sirius was 15 then, and maybe he was inspired by the nerve of his 
favorite cousin, because we know that at 16 he ran away from home. 
Looks like it was a really bad year for the Ancient and Most Noble 
House of Black.   

Avoiding the scandal of Andromeda's early marriage and Tonks birth 
seems possible only if we allow that Andromeda was older than Bella, 
and this would mess up my whole reconstruction of the sisters' ages 
according to their order of appearance in the tree. Inconceivable.

In previous posts I already noted that the three years of Hogwarts 
just above the Marauders included, in reasonable to high degree of 
canonicity: Frank Longbottom, Alice, Bella, Rudolphus, Rabastan, 
Bertha Jorkins, Florence, Avery, Rosier and Wilkes. Now add 
(possibly) the amorous Andromeda and Ted. You can imagine how Bella 
and her "gang of Slytherins" treated muggle-born Ted. I would think 
that this gang (all of them future DEs) was considerably more 
problematic and dangerous than the present day gang of Draco et al. 
I'd also remind you that these were "the years of terror" and that DD 
had just become the Headmaster. Over this kind of noise level, the 
Marauders' pranks and rule-breaking might not be so conspicuous as 
they look today, and you might forgive DD for failing to notice that 
three of them had become unregistered animagi. He had already had 
quite a lot on his plate.

Now to Narcissa. If the order in the Black family tree indeed 
reflects age, then Narcissa should be the youngest sister, about the 
age of the Marauders. She might be a year older or a year younger 
than them, but not younger than that because Draco is of the same age 
of Harry and you wouldn't suspect Narcissa of any improper behavior, 
right? Besides, Lucius wasn't at Hogwarts then. He is 5 years older 
than the Marauders, and by that time probably an active DE and 
looking for a young and presentable pureblood bride to continue the 
Malfoy dynasty. The only problem with this picture is that the 
Lexicon lists Narcissa's years in Hogwarts as identical to Lucius' in:

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/hogwarts/houses/slytherin.html

I believe this to be a mistake (do you read this, Steve?), especially 
since Narcissa's age is not mentioned in the Malfoys page of the 
Lexicon:

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/malfoy.html#Narcissa

JKR has recently mentioned in her website that she uses the Lexicon 
for reference, so if in HBP it turns out that Narcissa's age is 
identical to Lucius', then JKR's mistake had originated from the 
Lexicon. *I* was right all along!

Having Narcissa in Slytherin in the same or similar year as young 
Severus might lead to some interesting dynamics, especially as Lucius 
was not there, and in light of the present day relations between 
Snape and Lucius. I leave this to your wild imagination, as we're 
already late in this lengthy post.

My last question for today is: Is Andromeda still around? Sirius 
says: "Andromeda WAS my favorite cousin" but that's just because he 
didn't see her for so many years. Tonks OTOH says in Ch. 3: "My mum's 
got this knack of getting stuff to fit itself in neatly — she even 
GETS the socks to fold themselves — but I've never mastered how she 
DOES it". It thus seems that we might have some reunion of the three 
Black sisters before the end.


Neri