The basement dueling chamber was so large, I figured that the Blacks had gone beyond space expansion charms and into stealing space under the surrounding properties. Compared to the house's outside dimensions, the room appeared to be on a scale that even the Ministry and Hogwarts struggled to reach, as far as the defeat of various rules of spacetime. Well, the Room of Requirement at the school could make something bigger, but it was less an expanded space and more a barely-contained singularity resulting from all the other expanded spaces at the school.

I'm just saying, the Black Manor dueling room was big.

That space was important, because we were getting a workout that probably wasn't advisable on a full stomach, and needed plenty of room for maneuvering. My godmother's spells were splashing off of the rune-carved basalt bricks at a ferocious clip, providing a lot of the light in the room. While there were magical lights along the ceiling, the large room size and black walls tended to make it feel like having a battle in a void, laser beams streaking across the space between the stars.

A lot of that color was the red of the cruciatus curse, giving us ample reason to dodge.

My godmother somehow worked in commentary while she was casting. "Footwork, decent, both of you. Harry, you're leading too much with your shoulder. Crucio. Good. Keep track of your center of gravity. It's harder because you're tall. Sectumsempra. Almost got you, my dear. You've never been in a fight with real dark magic and it shows. I missed on purpose."

"This is dueling!?" Mathilda yelled, having nearly fallen over trying to dodge the cutting curse that apparently hadn't even been cast that close to her. "Protego!" she got a shield up to catch the flame-making charm my godmother tossed as a follow up. "This is dueling?"

"Kreacher cleaned the floor, so your nice robes should be fine," Bellatrix grinned, easily deflecting the stunner I'd thrown her way while she'd targeted Mathilda. I was starting to wish I'd given Moody fewer assurances that we'd be fine. Even with two of us to flank her, my godmother almost skittered, using her small frame and wisps of flowing black cloth to disguise her movements as she moved across the room. "Harry, you need cardio. You're breathing too heavily." She'd started firing off less-deadly curses silently during those phrases, making them even harder to counter.

"How are you so much better than the other Death Eaters? Protego!" I asked, catching a pretty gross-looking curse on my shield that nearly took it down. She wasn't wrong. I was getting winded having to dodge around the empty space. I usually made a lot of use of cover in magical fights.

"Please. I was the best fighter among them before they all spent a decade going soft again. Expulso! Keep paying attention, dear," she tossed a blue light that Mathilda actually managed a point-defense shield against, batting the explosive curse into the wall with the tip of her wand. "Nice!"

"So I assume you would be the only one that could manage to killing curse Voldemort in the back? Expelliarmus!" I asked, trying a theory.

"Bad business, that," she said, neither confirming or denying, negligently dancing out of the way of my disarming spell. "I assume you saw the body?"

"Rookwood didn't know who'd done it. Didn't recognize the voice," I explained, jockeying for position. "Dumb to have meetings in masks."

"Plausible deniability," she sing-songed the motto of my last couple of months, suddenly conjuring a pile of head-sized metal discs and flinging them our way. "It makes sense if the leader thinks he's invulnerable. Crucio. Crucio."

"Locomotor!" both Mathilda and I managed to get off, basically simultaneously, telekinetically grabbing a few of the discs and flipping them into the path of the torture curses, each making a noise like a gong and then exploding back into its conjured energy. I was really impressed that she'd managed two Unforgivable curses simultaneously.

"Enough!" Bellatrix called out, at least seeming winded by the final expenditure of magic. When we didn't follow up, she lowered her wand and stood in the middle of the floor, suddenly perfectly relaxed. "Good. Both of you are too reliant on dodging and shields, but at least you can learn. Harry has his own problems with how his foci work, but you should learn to transfigure obstacles, my dear. Harry, when there's detritus on the battlefield, levitating it is often easier than raising a shield. And if you've seen a body, why are you asking around? Why aren't they celebrating in the streets?"

I sighed. There was no way she didn't know part of this, but if she didn't it probably wouldn't hurt to explain, "Horcruxes. Multiple. Don't know if we got them all." I didn't think it was a risk, since at the very least the Death Eaters that had been present at the ritual knew that I was going after them, after taking out three in quick succession and taunting Voldemort about it.

She at least gave the appearance of taking that in and thinking about it. She didn't pretend she didn't recognize the word. "Do you know how many are left? I assume you've disposed of some, to learn of them?"

"We've gotten several. Two or three left," I shrugged. "Probably. If he meant to make seven."

"That shiny cup he gave us so long ago," she offered. "Unfortunately, Rabastan or Rodolphus could have already removed it from the Lestrange vault. I'll check to see if it's present, still, when next I have the opportunity to go to Gringotts. If they were wise, my husband and his brother would have removed me from the account by now. Leads on others?"

I couldn't trust her completely. Or at all. But I still suggested, "Regulus Black may have stolen one from him, before he died. We don't know if it was destroyed."

"Ah. Poor, little Reg. Always so conflicted," she smiled, remembering her younger cousin, who'd apparently turned on Voldemort. "There may be clues here, but the building, as I mentioned, is very dangerously infested. Perhaps you can do the house of Black a favor and help clean it out while looking for your missing soul jar."

"I'll talk to Draco about it?" I asked, picking up what she was laying down.

"Do that," she nodded. "I assume you can still make fiendfyre to destroy the objects?"

"Actually…" I shared a look with Mathilda, who shrugged, clearly wanting no part in trying to figure out what was safe to reveal to my insane faerie godmother. I explained, "We have a way of cleansing the items without destroying their enchantments, otherwise." And, hoping, if she really was opposed to Voldemort, she'd think it was important, I added, "And a way of destroying his shade, once the anchors are gone."

"So smart, like your mother. And it will be so much easier, with the dark lord out of the way and his followers scrambling." She gave an enigmatic little smile, and said, "You're welcome."

"I guess we can stop asking 'whodunnit,' then?" She didn't disagree with my question, so I asked, "Any idea about whether there's one more, and where it could be?"

"I recall he gave out quite a few items some years before his first disappearance," she answered. "The golden cup for the Lestranges. I heard others received keepsakes they were told to keep safe. I understand you're planning to ask around at the party next week, anyway. I'm interested to see how that goes."

"No pressure," I nodded. We just had to convince the Death Eater inner circle to give up what items they got from Voldemort, and test them to see if any were securing a piece of his soul.

"Really, Harry," she chided, "you act like the dark lord is even relevant anymore. If he pops back up, we'll simply kill him again. There's a much bigger world out there, and my new employers wouldn't want you to forget about them."

I hadn't actually been thinking that much about the winter fae, with the return of Lord Voldemort and his sudden death. The youngest unseelie queen, Maeve, was still up to something at Hogwarts, and wasn't my biggest fan in the world. "Is there anything I should be ready for on that front?" I asked.

She gave that little enigmatic smile again, but just said, "Perhaps. You've had time to rest. Let's see how you do against overwhelming elemental force!"

An hour later, nice robes covered in smoke, Mathilda and I exited back onto the Grimmauld Place park.

"Harry," Mathilda sighed. "Your godmother… no more unchaperoned dinners with her."

"Still think your family is the complicated one?" I asked, running my hand through my hair in the agreed gesture that things were okay. Moody, wherever he was hiding in the park, could go home as well.

"Nope! They're great. So little drama. Let's get home before something else happens!"

I nodded, feeling like I was pulling a muscle in the process, as we apparated home, planning to ask Penny for a once-over to make sure we didn't have any internal bleeding or something.

Maybe my godmother wouldn't hang around when we came back to look for whatever Regulus had stolen. At least we could hope.