Harry Potter Family Tree: The House of Black and the Weasleys

The Short Version

The Harry Potter Black family tree comes from a tapestry in Order of the Phoenix, chapter 6, headed “The Noble and Most Ancient House” of Black. Sirius and his younger brother Regulus are the last two sons of the line; their cousins are the three sisters Bellatrix (married to Rodolphus Lestrange), Andromeda (married to Ted Tonks, mother of Nymphadora Tonks) and Narcissa (married to Lucius Malfoy, mother of Draco). The Weasley family tree is simpler: Arthur and Molly Weasley have seven children, Bill, Charlie, Percy, the twins Fred and George, Ron and Ginny, and Bill is engaged to Fleur Delacour in Half-Blood Prince.

This tree is drawn from the text of the novels, not the films, and it covers books 1 to 6 only. Every link carries the book and chapter where it is stated, so you can check it yourself. I use short labels: SS (Sorcerer’s Stone), CoS (Chamber of Secrets), PoA (Prisoner of Azkaban), GoF (Goblet of Fire), OotP (Order of the Phoenix) and HBP (Half-Blood Prince).

Jump to: Black tree · Sirius · Regulus · Bellatrix · Andromeda and Tonks · Narcissa · Kreacher · Weasley tree · Weasley children · Prewetts · How the families connect · Full table

The Black Family Tree

Harry sees the tapestry at number twelve, Grimmauld Place: a family tree in gold thread going back to the Middle Ages, with the motto “Toujours pur” (OotP ch. 6). Sirius points out the names while he talks. Each indent below is one generation; a plus sign marks a marriage; a burn mark means the person was blasted off the tapestry.

Books 1 to 6 never say how the cousins’ parents fit in, or name Sirius’s parents, so the tree leaves those gaps open.

Who Is Sirius Black?

Sirius is the elder son of the house and Harry’s godfather; James and Lily named him godfather after he was best man at their wedding (PoA ch. 10). His mother blasted him off the tapestry when he ran away at about sixteen, and he went to the Potters, who “sort of adopted me as a second son” (OotP ch. 6).

Professor Slughorn says “The whole Black family had been in my House,” except Sirius, who ended up in Gryffindor (HBP ch. 4). Phineas Nigellus calls him “the last of the Blacks” when he hears Sirius is dead (OotP ch. 37).

Who Is Regulus Black?

Regulus is Sirius’s younger brother, “a much better son, as I was constantly reminded,” in Sirius’s words (OotP ch. 6). He joined the Death Eaters, tried to back out, and was murdered on Voldemort’s orders; the tapestry gives his death as some fifteen years before Order of the Phoenix (OotP ch. 6).

Slughorn taught him in Slytherin (HBP ch. 4), and Dumbledore confirms that both brothers were childless, which ended the direct male line (HBP ch. 3).

Who Is Bellatrix Lestrange?

Bellatrix is Sirius’s cousin, born Bellatrix Black, and the tapestry joins her by a double line to Rodolphus Lestrange (OotP ch. 6). She, Rodolphus and his brother Rabastan went to Azkaban with Barty Crouch junior (OotP ch. 6).

She is the sister of both Andromeda and Narcissa; Narcissa calls her “Bella,” and she answers “Cissy, your own sister?” (HBP ch. 2). Snape calls her Draco’s “Aunt Bellatrix” (HBP ch. 15). She kills Sirius at the Ministry, and Harry shouts that she killed him (OotP ch. 35, 36). After his death Dumbledore names her as Sirius’s eldest living relative, so the house might pass to “his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange” (HBP ch. 3).

Is Tonks Related to Sirius Black?

Yes. Nymphadora Tonks is the daughter of Andromeda, who “was my favourite cousin,” Sirius says (OotP ch. 6). Andromeda was burned off the tapestry for marrying Ted Tonks, a Muggle-born, while her sisters stayed because they made “lovely, respectable pure-blood marriages” (OotP ch. 6).

That makes Tonks the daughter of Sirius’s cousin and a niece of Bellatrix and Narcissa, though the books never use the word niece. Tonks herself blames “your fool of a mother” for the name Nymphadora (OotP ch. 3).

Who Is Narcissa Malfoy?

Narcissa appears on the tapestry as Narcissa Black, joined by a double gold line to Lucius Malfoy, with a single line down to Draco (OotP ch. 6). Lucius introduces “my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?” at the Quidditch World Cup (GoF ch. 8), and she calls Draco “my only son” (HBP ch. 2).

Kreacher calls Draco the “great-nephew of my old mistress,” meaning Sirius’s mother (HBP ch. 19). Draco also names his grandfather to Slughorn: “my grandfather, Abraxas Malfoy” (HBP ch. 9).

Who Is Phineas Nigellus Black?

Phineas Nigellus is Sirius’s great-great-grandfather and the “least popular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had,” Sirius jokes (OotP ch. 6). His portrait hangs in Dumbledore’s office and he can visit his other portrait at Grimmauld Place (OotP ch. 22; HBP ch. 13).

Who Are Uncle Alphard, Aunt Elladora and Araminta Meliflua?

They are three relatives Sirius points to on the tapestry (OotP ch. 6). “My Uncle Alphard had left me a decent bit of gold,” which let Sirius live on his own at seventeen, and Alphard was wiped off too. Aunt Elladora “started the family tradition of beheading house-elves,” and Araminta Meliflua, a cousin of Sirius’s mother, “tried to force through a Ministry Bill to make Muggle-hunting legal.”

Who Is Mrs. Black?

Mrs. Black is Sirius’s mother, a screaming life-size portrait in the hall that nobody can remove; Sirius introduces her as “My dear old mum” (OotP ch. 5). Her first name is not given in books 1 to 6, and Sirius’s father appears only as the man who “put every security measure known to wizardkind” on the house (OotP ch. 6).

What Is Kreacher’s Role in the Black Family?

Kreacher is the family’s house-elf; he says he “lives to serve the Noble House of Black” and tries to save the tapestry, which has been “seven centuries” in the family (OotP ch. 6). He must obey anyone in the family, which is why he ends up betraying Sirius: told to get out, he goes to Narcissa, “the only Black family member for whom he had any respect left” (OotP ch. 37).

When Sirius dies, his will leaves Harry the house and Kreacher with it (HBP ch. 3).

The Weasley Family Tree

The Weasley family tree is the opposite of the Blacks’: no tapestry, lots of children, and a family Sirius calls “a bunch of blood traitors” (OotP ch. 6). The Daily Prophet photo from Egypt shows “all nine of the Weasleys” (PoA ch. 1).

Who Are the Weasley Children in Order?

From oldest to youngest: Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, Ron and Ginny. Ron gives the order of the older boys on the train, “Bill was head boy and Charlie was captain of Quidditch. Now Percy’s a prefect,” and calls himself the sixth in the family to go to Hogwarts (SS ch. 6).

Bill is “our eldest son,” Arthur tells the Daily Prophet (PoA ch. 1), and Ginny is “the Weasleys’ youngest child and only girl” (PoA ch. 4). Fred and George are first met as “red-haired twins” at King’s Cross (SS ch. 6).

Who Is Fleur Delacour to the Weasleys?

Fleur is Bill’s fiancée; she tells Harry “Bill and I are going to be married!” and Molly thinks “they’ve hurried into this engagement” (HBP ch. 5). The wedding has not happened by the end of book 6, when Ron reminds Harry of “Bill and Fleur’s wedding” still to come (HBP ch. 30).

From Goblet of Fire, Fleur brings a small family of her own: a sister, Gabrielle, whom Harry rescues from the lake (GoF ch. 26), and a grandmother who was a Veela, since her wand holds “One of my grandmuzzer’s” hairs (GoF ch. 18).

Who Are the Other Weasley Relatives?

Books 1 to 6 name only a handful. Molly mentions “Our Great-Auntie Muriel,” who owns a goblin-made tiara she might lend Fleur (HBP ch. 29), and Ginny teases Ron about a kiss from “our Auntie Muriel” (HBP ch. 14). Ron’s “uncle Bilius” died twenty-four hours after seeing a Grim (PoA ch. 6), and Ron says his mother has “a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him” (SS ch. 6). The books do not say which branch Bilius or Muriel belongs to.

Are Fabian and Gideon Prewett in the Weasley Family Tree?

Not in books 1 to 6. Hagrid lists the Prewetts among the families Voldemort destroyed (SS ch. 4), Moody shows Harry Gideon Prewett in the photo of the original Order, saying “it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian” (OotP ch. 9), and Antonin Dolohov was convicted of their murders (OotP ch. 25).

Many online charts make them Molly’s brothers, but nothing in the first six books links them to Molly or gives her maiden name, so I keep them off this tree.

How Are the Blacks, Weasleys, Malfoys and Potters Connected?

Sirius sums it up at the tapestry: “The pure-blood families are all interrelated” (OotP ch. 6). Here is every link the text actually states:

• Blacks and Malfoys: by marriage. Narcissa Black married Lucius Malfoy, so Draco is the son of Sirius’s cousin and Bellatrix’s nephew (OotP ch. 6; HBP ch. 15).
• Blacks and Lestranges: by marriage. Bellatrix Black married Rodolphus Lestrange (OotP ch. 6).
• Blacks and Weasleys: distant cousins. “Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur’s something like my second cousin once removed,” Sirius says, but the Weasleys are not on the tapestry (OotP ch. 6). The books do not explain the exact route.
• Blacks and Tonkses: by marriage. Andromeda Black married Ted Tonks (OotP ch. 6).
• Blacks and Potters: not by blood. Sirius is Harry’s godfather (PoA ch. 10), Harry’s grandparents took Sirius in at sixteen (OotP ch. 6), and Harry inherits the house and Kreacher (HBP ch. 3).
• Weasleys and Potters: friendship, not family. Harry goes out with Ginny in Half-Blood Prince (HBP ch. 24, 25) and ends it at Dumbledore’s funeral (HBP ch. 30).
• Weasleys and Malfoys: no family link is stated anywhere in books 1 to 6.

Harry’s own family is small: his mother Lily was the sister of Petunia Dursley, so Dudley is his cousin (SS ch. 1). His mother was Muggle-born (HBP ch. 4), so Harry is not part of the pure-blood web Sirius describes.

Black and Weasley Family Tree: Every Link in One Table

What This Tree Leaves Out

This page covers Harry Potter books 1 to 6 only, read as text. Later material, including the final book and drawings of the tapestry published outside the novels, adds more names, marriages and fates; none of that is here, and neither is anything only seen in the films.

For more on the books behind these families, see the Order of the Phoenix review, the Half-Blood Prince ending explained, the HBO Harry Potter series guide, and the Sorcerer’s Stone review.