Um. So this one is a lot longer than the others... But I wanted to show Wally's entire reaction to Peia's life story, and this does take place before the end of Out of Time, I just hadn't though it that important to THAT plot. And remember, if y'all have any questions about anything that happened after OoT, just ask and I'll write something up about it! I love you all my little dumplings!

-Morrigan


August 1947

"Peia?" Wally called from the kitchen of her and Orion's small flat when she heard the floo activate. "I'm putting the kettle on!"

"Thank Merlin," Peia said, plopping down on one of the small kitchen chairs. "I can't take it anymore, Wally."

Wally arched a brow at her friend and sat in the chair next to her. "Is this about Aline? Because I swear if she says one more nasty word about you, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind."

Peia smirked slightly. "No, it's nothing like that. I just can't take you not knowing the truth anymore. I have to tell you."

Wally narrowed her eyes. "So after three years you're finally going to tell me who you really are?"

Peia pursed her lips. "So you never did believe that we were cousins from abroad?"

"Of course not," Wally laughed. "Others don't question it because they're not as close to you, but I see you nearly everyday and I'm married to Orion. I swear he stiffens every time I mention you or Draco's past."

The kettle whistled and Wally stood to pull it off the stove.

Peia sighed. "I might as well start from the beginning."

Wally nodded and set the hot kettle on the table. She looked at her friend expectantly, but Peia was just staring at her hands so Wally sat back down and wrapped her hands around Peia's.

"You don't have to do this if it's too hard."

Peia took a deep breath. "I know, but I need you to know. I don't like keeping secrets from you."

Wally smiled. "Let's start with what I already know. I know that you are definitely a Black, and that you're closely related to Orion."

Peia choked on the tea she had just taken a sip of. "H-how do you know that?"

"You two are much too alike not to be," Wally chuckled.

Peia smiled and set her tea on the table. "So what else do you know?"

Wally tapped her chin in mock thought and Peia giggled. "You and Draco are not brother and sister."

Peia's jaw nearly hit the floor and Wally grinned.

"What makes you say that?"

Wally snorted. "It just wouldn't be fair if two siblings were as attractive as you two are."

Peia threw her head back laughing. "Oh Wally, just you wait," she winked at her friend who just narrowed her eyes before shaking her head.

"Okay, that's all I know for sure," Wally said. "Start from the beginning."

Peia chewed on her lip for a moment. "My name is Cassiopeia Black, and I was born on April 12th, 1980."

This time it was Wally's jaw that hit the floor. "I have to admit, I didn't see that coming."

Peia smiled slightly and took another sip of tea. "My father is Sirius Orion Black."

Wally blinked several dozen times at Peia. "W-who?"

Peia swallowed and looked into her teacup. "Sirius Orion Black is the son of Orion Arcturus Black and Walburga Violetta Black."

Wally gasped and slapped her own hand around her mouth, her eyes wide. After several moments of just starting at Peia, she removed her hand and took a long drink of her own tea.

"S-so that means t-that I-I'm your grandmother?"

Peia nodded slowly and looked at Wally. "Sorry if that makes things weird."

Wally let out a hysterical laugh and covered her mouth again. "I was talked into marrying my husband by my granddaughter. Oh Merlin this is bloody strange."

Peia smiled. "Want me to go on?"

Wally nodded quickly, eager for more.

"Well, I'm not going to tell you who my mother is," Peia said and Wally dropped her hands to the table.

"You have to tell me!"

Peia snorted. "Why? So you can force them together before it naturally happens? No. One thing I've learned already is that you can't change fate, if it's supposed to happen it will find a way."

Wally pursed her lips but motioned for Peia to go on. "What about Draco?"

Peia smiled. "Draco Lucius Malfoy was born on June 5th, 1980 and is the son of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy, son of Abraxas Hyperion Malfoy."

"No fucking way," Wally said and Peia laughed. "So you're shagging Draco's grandpa? That is fantastic. But how is he related to you?"

Peia smiled. "You have to promise never to tell anyone."

Wally crossed her heart with a finger. "I swear."

"Draco's mum is Narcissa Ella Black, daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black."

Wally's eyes widened. "This just keeps getting better and better."

Peia snorted. "It's about to get a lot worse, actually. I have to back track a bit to tell you the whole story."

"Well go on then, I'll get us some biscuits."

Peia laughed. "It's going to get pretty dark so you might want to grab the whole box."

Wally turned around with a package of biscuits and narrowed her eyes. "I suppose they're all dead then, or you wouldn't have come back here."

Peia grabbed the biscuits from Wally and nodded. "Before Draco and I were born there was a really dark wizard who came into power. He called himself Lord Voldemort. He did a lot of really horrible things, he and his followers, they called themselves Death Eaters, killed a lot of innocent people. They were all really into the whole blood purity thing."

Wally stiffened and Peia smiled.

"Relax, I know it's just how you were raised. I was raised differently."

Wally arched a brow. "Your father didn't teach you to dislike Muggleborns?"

Peia smiled and shook her head. "You blasted my father off the family tapestry when he was sixteen."

Wally's eyes widened. "No," she whispered, shaking her head and Peia grabbed her hands.

"You were a different person in my time, Wally. You weren't Wally, you were Walburga, and you were mean and embittered because you never let yourself fall in love with your husband. And your husband was a mean and cruel man, and also one of the original Death Eaters. The two of you were some of Voldemort's most loyal followers, you agreed with him wholeheartedly about blood purity and that Muggles are on the same level as say, House Elves."

Wally's eyes filled with tears and she clutched Peia's hand tightly. "I don't want to be that kind of person, Peia, but it's hard to think of Muggleborns as anything other than Mudbloods."

Peia smiled. "I know, but you are trying, and that is the important thing. Do you want me to go on?"

Wally nodded reluctantly and Peia nudged the biscuits toward her. "So there was resistance, of course, from the other side of things a group formed called the Order of the Phoenix with Dumbledore at the head. It was a small group, but they were strong. My parents were in it, so were the Potters, the Prewetts, the Longbottoms, and many others.

"But there was a prophecy made sometime before Draco and I were born. It basically said that there would be a child born at the end of the seventh month to parents who had defied the Dark Lord three times, and that child would be the only person who could defeat the Dark Lord, but that neither could live while the other survived. It also said that the child would have powers the Dark Lord knew not."

Wally arched a brow. "What does that even mean?"

Peia snorted. "Well, there were two couples who had defied Voldemort three times, James and Lily Potter and Frank and Alice Longbottom. Both Alice and Lily were pregnant with sons who would be born at the end of July that year."

Wally covered her mouth. "Potter, as in Dorea's son?"

Peia nodded. "And Frank Longbottom was Callidora's son."

Wally's eyes filled with tears. "This is so horrible, Peia."

"I know," Peia said. "So the prophecy also said that the Dark Lord would mark him as his equal, but they didn't know what this meant at the time. When the prophesy was given, it was overheard by one of the Death Eaters who immediately went back to tell Voldemort, but he didn't hear the entire thing. Since there were two boys born at the end of that month, Voldemort would have to choose, he would have to mark him as his equal."

"Who did he choose?" Wally asked.

Peia smirked slightly. "Voldemort was a half-blood, even though he said he believed that purebloods were the only wizards worth anything, he wasn't one himself. So he chose the boy who was, like himself, a half-blood instead of the pureblood boy. He chose Harry Potter over Neville Longbottom."

"Harry?" Wally said. "Isn't Harry the name of your boyfriend who died?"

Peia nodded. "Yes. When Voldemort went to kill Harry and his family, his killing curse rebounded and hit him instead."

"It killed him?" Wally asked.

"No," Peia shook her head. "Do you know what Horcruxes are?"

Wally arched a brow. "No."

Peia pursed her lips and took another sip of her now cold tea. "A Horcrux is a really dark piece of magic, it's an object that houses a piece of a wizard's soul. You make them by killing another person. Each time you kill a person, a bit of your soul gets ripped away, and you can trap it inside an object. That way you can never truly die, as long as you have your Horcrux."

Wally furrowed her brow. "This Voldemort, he had a Horcrux?"

"He had six."

Wally's jaw dropped open. "Six?" she asked incredulously.

"Six," Peia nodded. "He made the first one when he opened the Chamber of Secrets and killed Myrtle."

Wally gasped. "Hagrid? Hagrid was Voldemort?"

Peia choked. "Merlin, no! Hagrid didn't open the bloody Chamber of Secrets, there is no way you ever believed that!"

Wally's eyes shifted away from Peia's. "I suppose not, no."

"Voldemort was someone you and I both know very well."

Wally shook her head. "No, I can't hear it. Don't tell me."

Peia grasped Wally's hands tightly. "Lord Voldemort was Tom Riddle."

Wally dropped her head onto the table and sighed. Peia gently rubbed circles on her back, trying to comfort her friend.

"How many Hor-thingys does he have right now?" Wally asked, her forehead still on the table.

"Two," Peia said. "But that is the end of the story. So after Voldemort tried to kill Harry, a lot of people thought he was dead but there were some who knew he wasn't. Some of his followers tortured the Longbottoms into insanity trying to get information from them, others went into hiding, and some sort of hid in plain sight. They said they'd been imperiused.

"Dumbledore took Harry to live with his Muggle aunt and uncle—"

"Why wouldn't he live with Dorea and Charlus?" Wally interrupted.

Peia shook her head. "I don't know what happened to them, all I know is that they were dead before Voldemort killed James and Lily. The important thing though, is that Dumbledore knew something that no one else did. When Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow that night, Lily Potter sacrificed herself trying save her son, she died for love. It's a rare and strange bit of magic, love, and no one really understands it.

"But it's the most powerful magic in the world. Lily's love for her son saved him, it was her sacrifice that made Voldemort's curse rebound. The only thing that Harry was left with was a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead and an ability to speak to snakes, that we knew of for a long time anyway."

"Harry was a Parselmouth?" Wally asked.

Peia nodded. "When Voldemort's body was destroyed, a piece of his soul attached itself to the only living being in the room."

"Harry," Wally whispered and Peia nodded again.

"We didn't know that until everything was almost over though. So everything sort of just progressed as normal until we got to Hogwarts, then things happened every year almost, but I won't get into all those details. Voldemort was sort of resurrected in my fourth year, one of his followers was able to give him his body back, but I don't know the specifics. Harry was there, they had to use some of his blood, and there was another boy from school, Cedric who they killed.

"Harry escaped that night and didn't have to face Voldemort again for another year. It was a difficult year though, the general public didn't believe Harry or Dumbledore that Voldemort was back, no one wanted to believe it. They started the Order of the Phoenix back up that year, and Grimmauld Place was the Headquarters. Because of Harry's connection to Voldemort, he kept having these dreams, sort of like visions where he would see what Voldemort was feeling or doing."

"That's horrible," Wally said. "That poor boy."

"It was. He saw my uncle nearly get killed by Voldemort's pet snake. If Harry wouldn't have seen that and told someone, my uncle would have died. After that Voldemort realised there was a connection and he started to use it to his advantage. He planted a vision in Harry's mind of my dad being tortured at the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry."

Wally arched a brow. "Why there?"

"Because Voldemort needed to hear the rest of the prophecy, and only the people about whom a prophecy is about can retrieve it. Obviously Voldemort himself wasn't going to go to the Ministry of Magic to get it, so it had to be Harry."

Wally nodded then looked at Peia sharply. "Don't tell me that you and Harry went to save your dad?"

Peia smirked. "Well, it wasn't just us. It was Harry and I, plus my cousins Ron and Ginny, and Draco and his girlfriend Hermione, plus Neville Longbottom and our friend Luna."

Wally's eyes widened. "That's a lot of people."

"We knew it would be dangerous, but they wouldn't let us go alone, believe me we tried to make them stay at Hogwarts."

"Why did Voldemort use your dad against Harry? Seems like an odd choice."

Peia snorted. "My parents were Harry's godparents, they had been best friends with Lily and James since they were in school."

Wally smiled slightly. "So what happened when you got there?"

"As you can imagine, my dad wasn't there, but there were Death Eaters waiting for us. Chaos ensued, of course and nearly all of us were hurt pretty badly. Then sort of suddenly, the Order arrived, Uncle Lucius and my dad were at the front, looking for Draco and I. I don't really remember much because I had broken my arm and the pain was horrible. It was actually my own cousin who broke it."

Wally arched a brow. "Who?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange, formerly Black, daughter of Cygnus and Druella. Voldemort's most loyal and trusted Death Eater."

"No," Wally closed her eyes. "My own niece hurt would hurt my granddaughter that badly?"

Peia laughed dryly. "Bellatrix never had any love for me. She and my dad hated each other. Dad was a blood traitor and I was too so Bellatrix loathed us. Of course after Uncle Lucius defected from the Death Eaters and joined the Order, she hated Aunt Cissy and Draco just as much. But she really had it out for me.

"I remember being in this strange room that had a big stone archway in the middle, there was this sort of veil hanging down and if you got too close to it you could hear voices. It was really strange."

Peia paused and wiped a stray tear off her cheek, smiling at Wally's confused look. "I'm sorry, this part is just really hard to think about."

Wally patted her hand. "It's okay, take your time."

"I remember dueling with Dolohov and hearing my dad say something to Harry when Remus, my dad's best friend, came rushing over to me and stunned Dolohov. I turned around and saw my dad dueling with Bellatrix, both of them were laughing, sort of taunting each other. It all happened so fast, she hit him with a killing curse and he fell through the veil. That was it. He was dead just like that."

Wally choked back a sob. "Peia, I am so so sorry."

Peia shook her head and took a deep breath. "Voldemort had showed up at the Ministry shortly after that, I think Bellatrix called him. Harry dueled with him and then Dumbledore came and chased Voldemort off. But not before nearly every Ministry worker came flooding in, including the Minister for Magic. They couldn't deny it anymore, they all saw him, they knew he was back.

"Things were different after that. Harry and I grew apart for a while. He was so distraught over what had happened to my dad, he blamed himself. I didn't though, I never blamed Harry. It was Bellatrix's blood that I wanted. Dumbledore and Harry started searching for the Horcruxes in our sixth year. Three were destroyed by the time the Death Eaters killed Dumbledore at the end of the year."

Wally blinked at Peia. "They killed Dumbledore?"

Wally nodded. "They got into the castle one night and killed him. Harry was there, he saw the whole thing. He still had more Horcruxes to find and destroy, two that he knew of for sure, so he and Ron and Hermione, they didn't go back to school for our seventh year."

"What did they do?"

Peia smirked. "They searched for the Horcruxes, lived in the woods I guess. Draco and I didn't go back either, we couldn't."

"Why?"

"We were children of known members of the Order of the Phoenix and Death Eaters were running Hogwarts. They would have killed us. Instead, we went on the run, like a lot of our classmates who were Muggleborn. They killed Uncle Lucius and Aunt Cissy trying to find us."

Wally sighed and shook her head. "They killed everyone, didn't they?"

Peia nodded slowly. "There was a battle at Hogwarts. It was June second of nineteen-ninety-eight. It was total chaos. I saw Bellatrix kill my other cousin Dora, and then she killed my mum right in front of me. She knew I was watching too. It was horrible. By the end, everyone was dead; it was just Draco, Harry and I left. There were others, but I didn't know them, I don't remember any of their faces, I just remember lots of people standing around as Draco and I hid behind a chunk of stone that had fallen.

"Voldemort killed Harry. I watched his body hit the ground, dead. That was when Draco put the time turner that Hermione had given him around our necks and brought us back here, back to 1944."

Wally blinked a few times before shaking her head. "That is awful. I am so sorry you had to go through all of that Peia. And Draco too."

Peia sighed. "We came back here to destroy all the Horcruxes, but we don't even have any. He's made two, his diary and that stupid ring he wears. We have three of the other objects that he was going to use, and so far we don't think he's made anymore. He's different; he's not Voldemort yet. He doesn't have any followers that we know of and he seems like he tries to be a decent person."

Wally snorted. "You've definitely changed him."

"That's what Orion always says," Peia said, shaking her head. "He can still be so vile though."

Wally laughed. "So how do we get the Horcruxes and destroy them?"

"I've been trying to get them, but he never takes the blasted ring off and I've looked through his flat, I can't find the diary."

"He probably just doesn't trust you enough," Wally said, tapping her chin. "You should have shagged him back in school, he probably would have trusted you a lot more."

"Oi!" Peia shouted and shoved Wally's shoulder playfully.

"Honestly though," Wally shook her head. "I don't know how you can stand him enough to even be in the same room as he is after all the things you saw him do in the future."

Peia sighed. "I told you, he's different somehow."