How did Sirius get the Grimmauld Place? Common Law Ref.

[emza29]

No: HPFGUIDX 131761

Emma earlier:

> The trouble with the entail theory, which does ring true in terms 
of 
> how Sirius might have inherited the Black estate, is that 
Grimmauld 
> Place itself seems to have been his mother's house, not his 
> father's, and therefore, self-evidently, had either descended 
> through the female line, or had been bought by Mrs Black with her 
> own money. If it had been inherited by Mrs Black, it could 
therefore 
> be passed on to another female. If she had bought it with her own 
> money, it would not be encumbered by an entail, and she could 
leave 
> it how she wished.


Emma now:
Sorry for replying to my own post.I should have thought some more about this before I pressed 'send'.

Let me explain why I think Number 12 Grimmauld Place was Mrs 
Black's property rather than the Black ancestral seat:

Mrs Black regards it as the house of *her* fathers:

"Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, 
mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the 
house of my fathers - " (p 74 OOTP UK edition)

Sirius sees the house as the place where his father lived for a time:

'My father put every security measure known to wizardkind on it 
*when he lived here*' (my emphasis; p 106 as before)

Kreacher sees the house as Mrs Black's:

'...nasty old blood traitor with her brats messing up my mistress's 
house, oh, my poor mistress, if she knew, if she knew the scum 
they've let into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher' (p 
100 as before)

As does Snape:

'"Or are you afraid he might not take very seriously the advice of a 
man who has been hiding inside his mother's house for six months?"' 
(to Sirius) (p 399-400 as before)

I'm aware that any of the above might be explained away as 
individual statements. Mrs Black's personality permeates 12 
Grimmauld Place, mainly because of her portrait in the entrance hall.

It is almost inevitable that Mr Black is less prominent in people's 
minds. Kreacher obviously adored her so sees the house as hers, and 
Snape was aiming to insult Sirius as much as possible by implying 
that he's still tied to his mother's apron strings. Still, I don't 
think the strong personality of Mrs Black entirely explains away 
Sirius referring to his father strengthening the security 'when he 
lived here', or Mrs Black referring to 'the house of my fathers'.

I'm sure there are lots of possible explanations for the above
– I like a_svirn's idea of Mr and Mrs Black having an incestuous 
marriage – but it seems to me that the easiest is that the house 
actually was `the house of [Mrs Black's] fathers' rather than Mr
Black's, and that Mr Black did indeed only live there for the time 
being.

The following is pure speculation, and based almost entirely on too 
much reading of Jane Austen and George Eliot, but it also strikes me 
as implausible that such a grand family as the Blacks seem to be 
should have a house in a *street* with a *number* as their main 
seat. Betcha there's a country estate somewhere, or there was,
and Number 12 Grimmauld Place was just their house in town, brought 
to the marriage by Mrs Black.