"Miss Black, is that a phoenix?" Professor McGonagall asked in a battle weary tone of a soldier on the losing side of a war.
"Of course not, ma'am," Lena denied as a baby phoenix blatantly nestled on her shoulder.
Fred and George flanked her on either side, and began to look around and squint at things like they needed glasses.
"I don't see anything either, Freddie," George announced as he made direct eye contact with the bird.
"Do you reckon we're going blind, then, or should we get the Professor to the hospital wing for hallucinating?" Fred replied as he leaned closer to McGonagall in concern.
The woman in question wore an expression that Lena had long since gotten used to since arriving at Hogwarts. The disbelief of her heritage had melted into this harried resignation within days, and Lena revelled in it every time.
"Miss Black, I must insist that you return the headmaster's phoenix this instant," McGonagall ordered as she wisely decided to ignore the twins.
"The headmaster has a phoenix?" Lena honestly gasped as the phoenix on her shoulder let out an excited warble.
Dawning horror crept across McGonagall's face. "Miss Black, where did you get that creature?" She asked in a pained sort of voice.
"What creature?" Lena demanded as she swung her head this way and that once more.
"Detention, all three of you!"
"Damn, I thought we had that one."
"Double detention!"
—
As it turned out, randomly attending classes with a phoenix attached to her — she got separation anxiety in Lena's defense — was apparently grounds for a trip to the headmaster's office.
So that was how Lena found herself sitting in the plushiest chair she'd ever experienced in front of a grand mahogany desk that was covered in magical trinkets.
Book shelves stocked with rare magical tomes made Lena's hands itch in her lap, and she watched in fond amusement as Fawkes tucked her own little chick under his beautiful wing.
"Hello, Miss Black," Dumbledore greeted kindly as he breezed into the room and took his seat across from her.
He wore robes of a deep plum with golden grape vines embroidered sporadically across the fabric, and Lena's lips tugged upward at the sight.
"Hello, Headmaster," Lena replied airily, "lovely day we're having, isn't it?"
"Oh yes, Miss Black, I've always been a fan of inclement weather myself."
As if on cue, a massive gust of wind shook the window frame as thunder boomed above the sound of the torrential downpour.
Lena nodded sagely as the two phoenixes appeared to roll their eyes. "I find that it often brings out the best of us when it's over," she agreed.
His blue eyes seemed to twinkle with hidden stars, and Lena idly wondered if it was a spell or not.
"Matters about weather aside, it has come to my attention that your teachers believe you've stolen my phoenix."
Lena stared directly at the two phoenixes on the perch behind his desk and nodded gravely. "Yes, Headmaster, it would appear that I am a raging kleptomaniac, you see."
Dumbledore hid his smile at the dry tone that was so like that of an old friend. "While I'm quite certain that is not the case here, Miss Black, I must remind you that magical creatures are not permitted as pets here at Hogwarts."
Lena blinked at him in confusion, arching a sapphire eyebrow at Dumbledore's very visibly magical 'pet.'
"Oh but you see, headmaster, Dragon here isn't a pet."
"You've named her, Dragon?" Dumbledore murmured in confusion.
"Oh no, Headmaster, Big D named herself that when I asked her." Dragon warbled in affirmation on her perch and fluttered back onto Lena's shoulder. "You see I rescued her from a band of smuggler pirates in the depths of the Dead Sea, and she's stuck by me ever since."
Dumbledore frowned for the first time all day, and Lena kept her eyes round and sincere.
"And may I ask when this was, Miss Black?"
"Oh, I don't know, about sixteen hours ago?" She mused as she ran a hand down Dragon's back. "That sound right to you, Big D?"
The phoenix trilled her assent.
"Is that so?" Dumbledore questioned wryly.
Something in his eyes told Lena that he clearly didn't believe her.
Joke's on him, Lena thought smugly, I was telling the truth that time.
"Yes, Sir," she confirmed as Dragon decided to hang from her tie and swing back and forth. "I tried to set her free in the wilds of Romania, but she just kept coming back, you see."
Fawkes made a chortling sound behind Dumbledore, and the old man just stared at her like he wasn't quite sure what to make of the Black Matriarch.
"Just keep Dragon out of the classroom, Lena," he finally sighed.
"Of course, Sir."
—
Fawkes became her classroom buddy after that, but only when she was early enough in her life cycle to hide in Lena's hair.
(She would make it crimson and gold to help Dragon camouflage.)
The phoenix even gave each Fred and George a feather that Lena made into quills for them.
Weeks passed by in a whirlwind of pranks, classes, and midnight adventures, and soon the holidays were upon them.
"Do you have to stay at that stupid castle?" Marie groused as she prepared a cow carcass for the thestrals.
"And miss out on the feasts?" Lena demanded. "I'll bring you leftovers from the kitchens, and you'll see why I'm staying for Christmas."
Marie rolled her honey brown eyes and jabbed Lena in the ribs. "You're such a sellout when it comes to food."
"And proud of it," Lena agreed as she levitated the carcass towards the small thestral herd.
Her briefcase dimension had grown quite large in the years since she'd made it, and now there was a full tangle of an emerald forest lined with towering mountains that were dotted with various animal habitats.
The living space remained mostly the same, but the work room was now covered in experiments and prototypes of random inventions, a second bedroom was there for Marie, and a greenhouse had joined the setup when Lena's flower beds had begun to overflow.
Marie loved botany, so she happily tended to the tamer plants when Lena was busy.
"Have you met that cousin's family yet?" Marie asked as they watched the carcass disappear into the mouths of the skeletal creatures.
"We've been exchanging letters, but they're going to Switzerland on holiday this year, so we'll have to wait until summer to properly meet."
"You'll still stay at Wool's though, right?" Marie questioned with a playful threat in her tone.
Lena laughed as her friend cracked her knuckles and flexed her leather clad fists. "Of course I will, I wouldn't let you stay in that pit alone."
"You better not, Black," Marie teased, "I'd hate to have to hunt you down and drag you back if you run."
"As if you'd catch me," Lena scoffed.
"Wanna test that theory, brat?"
"You're two years older than me, you're just as much of a brat as I am!"
"Oh, really?" Marie asked in a sickly sweet tone.
After a moment of careful consideration, Lena swept Marie's feet out from under her and wisely booked it to the safety of the dragon's den high in the mountains.
"You'll pay for that, brat!" Marie crowed behind her.
"Not if I don't stop running, Grandma!" Lena cackled in glee.
Oh, how she loved her friends.
—
"I would like to formally wish you a happy birthday, Tom Marvolo Riddle." Lena announced in her dreams as she presented a towering cake to a prickly boy.
It loomed above her in giant tiers of rainbow frosting and fondant roses, and she grinned at her friend as he stared at it with an utterly dead expression.
Since it was Lena's dreamworld, her friend was decked in confetti themed birthday robes, and glitter coated him from head to toe from the celebratory birthday cannons.
"I would like to formally decline that it's my birthday, Lena Calliope Black." Tom replied flatly.
"You can't decline a birthday, old friend." She solemnly informed him. "You can pretend it doesn't exist all you'd like, but at the end of the day it marks another year gone!"
Tom's face twisted oddly at that, but he smoothed it out a mere second later. "What a delightful thought," he scoffed. "How utterly charming."
"It is, isn't it?" Lena agreed as she handed him a massive slice of cake. "The best part about dreamworld is that I can give you this and we can still duel without risking a stomach ache."
"Where have you been getting all this energy from?"
"I've befriended twin gremlins at school, I'm afraid."
"Of course you did."
Lena just grinned and smushed cake in his face for tradition's sake.
"That for weddings, not birthdays, you ridiculous girl!" Tom howled as they forewent the cake and jumped straight to the duel.
It was totally worth it.
—
"My beautiful cousin!" Tonks cried as she swooped down on Lena in the Great Hall on a cool Saturday morning.
"Sweet blood of my blood!" Lena sang back as she attempted to return the hug. Fred and George didn't even flinch beside her as they continued their quidditch debate with Lee.
Tonks hauled her up and plopped her down so she sat facing outwards on the bench, and Lena cocked her head to the side in curiosity.
"You passed your flying lessons, yeah?" Tonks demanded.
Her friends Nina and Ashlyn were standing behind her with wicked grins and brooms tossed over their shoulders.
"With flying colors," Lena said primly.
"Excellent," Tonks replied with a maniacal laugh. "Looks like we've got a scrimmage after all, Weasley!" She crowed with glee.
"You realize that Black is a Gryffindor, right Tonks?" Charlie demanded after he'd startled from his spot further down the table.
"What are you talking about, you buffoon? Look at her hair!"
Lena immediately swapped sapphire locks with black and yellow stripes to blend in with the badgers, and Tonks' grin grew even wider.
"See?" She shouted, "she's a Puff for today!"
They lost the scrimmage, but Charlie Weasley told her that he expected her to try out for chaser next year.
"Davis is graduating along with our beaters, so make sure to practice with Fred and George."
Lena saluted him with the most serious face she'd ever worn.
—
"You know," Lena gasped as she lay crumpled on the quidditch pitch, "I didn't — think that— he would be quite so— intense when I agreed to this."
Fred and George let out twin groans where they lay collapsed on either side of her while Charlie and the rest of the quidditch team laughed at them as they packed up the balls.
"Oh come on, Black — you can't be that tired after a measly little practice!" Charlie taunted after he'd latched the last bludger into place.
Lena, whose hair had faded to a ghostly pale blue in her exhaustion, gave him the stink eye. "'That,' was not a practice, you absolute sadist — 'that' was three hours of hell!"
Charlie's brows flicked up at the vehemence in her voice, and he gave her a grin better suited to the twins. "This might be the first time I've heard you use any other tone than sarcastic, Black! And all it took was a little weekend practice!"
"All it took?" Fred echoed.
"All it took?" George repeated.
"All it TOOK?" The three first years howled.
But Charlie just laughed and cheerfully told them that the next practice would be worse if they dared try to skip out.
She was going to kill Tonks for getting her into this.
—
Lena was staring the fattest rat she had ever seen, and it was staring at her with absolute terror in its gaze.
"You know, George, that rat looks like it's a piece of cheese away from a heart attack." She announced as she lounged by the fire with a battered book.
"Oi! Scabbers is the healthiest rat ever, Black! Don't listen to her Scabbers, dear, she doesn't know what she's talking about," George cooed to the rat as he sat hunched over prank logistics.
"I dunno George, Lena's the animal expert here, maybe we should lay off giving him chocolates for a while," Fred mused as he played exploding snap with Lee Jordan.
"Freddie! You traitor!" George cried as Scabbers let out a desperate squeak of alarm and dove onto the chocolate pile.
Lena narrowed her eyes at him in slight disgust.
She wasn't sure why, but Scabbers just rubbed her the wrong way.
"Just saying," Lena sighed, turning back to her book.
If they wanted a fat rat, let them have a fat rat. It wasn't her responsibility at the end of the day.
"Oi, Calliope," George piped up after a moment.
Lena knew she should have never given them her middle name.
"Yes, Forgie?" She sang, lightly kicking out at him in reprimand for the name.
He just grinned and pinched her toe as he asked, "you got the notes for Sinistra's class?"
"Only if you carry me to my next three classes," Lena decided after a moment of careful contemplation.
"Are you really that lazy?" He demanded as Fred and Lee snickered at his dumbfounded expression.
"Only when I'm sleep deprived," Lena admitted in a bout of self awareness.
"Fine you bloody djinn," George huffed, snatching her notes and skimming over them.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Weasley!"
He shot her a rude gesture and dragged her off her chair by the ankle.
"Brute."
"And proud of it, Black!"
—
A silly little Slytherin was trying to throw a frog liver into Lena's cauldron during the potions final, and Lena was getting annoyed.
This was the fifth failed attempt, and after she'd taken her potion off the heat and made sure a bubble of non verbal wards encased it, she turned around with a vicious glare.
With the ever present dark rings around her eyes, the scar on her neck, the sharp facial features, and the furiously red hair, it was no wonder the lad started crying.
Professor Snape was a bitter man with too many regrets and a penchant for the most billowing robes Lena had ever seen.
His hair was always greased from too much time hunched over a cauldron, and his stare was as mean as an adder.
But he was not a stupid man.
He knew exactly what went on in his classroom at all times, and was diligent about making sure any brewing mistakes weren't fatal.
Which was an admittedly hard job when it came to potion making.
So Lena never knew whether to be flattered or insulted that he let her field anyone's attempts to sabotage her work on her own.
On one hand, it could show that he trusted her enough not to let anything explode or become toxic.
On the other hand, it could show that he didn't particularly care if she got blown up or not.
Whichever the case, he didn't even glance her way as the Slytherin sobbed quietly and Lena vanished the halo of frog livers around her with a flick of her wand.
Though he still sneered and told her not to show off when she bottled her brew early and passed it in so she could quietly read under the desk.
She thought it was funny that she sold him potion ingredients every now and then without him realizing who she was.
(She'd taken to wearing an older and more scarred version of her face with straight platinum blonde hair and a stocky build for her dealings. It was the best way to avoid recognition while staying consistent when she dealt with customers.)
And no matter how Snape felt about her as a student, Lena got an O on that exam.
So she couldn't really say she cared.
—
Lena did not grow up in a very loving place.
She grew up in an orphanage where the children literally almost killed her, and at night she would roam through trafficking rings with dark witches and wizards in situations that left her with countless other scars than the one on her neck.
She'd run into a handful of werewolves in her travels — some vicious, some sweet — and she could openly admit that she rather resembled them at this point.
The scars not from magical creatures faded over time as she had gotten most of them young, but she was still littered with claw slashes and stray bite marks across her arms, back, and legs.
Not to mention the smile on her neck.
Suffice to say, she had never been a very touchy person as a result.
Marie was her best friend, but they rarely shared more than a high five — even if the other was in tears.
Tom was her best imaginary friend, and he only tolerated touch when sparring or when he was exceptionally disturbed by something.
Which was exceedingly rare.
So it was quite a shock when Lena first entered the Tonks residence on a humid summer night in July.
Tonks had flung open the door to drag Lena inside a tidy home with warm peach walls and dozens of family photos.
Her combat boots were deposited on the mat by the door, and Lena quickly found herself in a sitting room with plush cream couches and a crackling hearth.
In the lone armchair by the far window, an elegant woman with a face vaguely-similar to hers sat with a noble's posture and an assessing glint in her eyes.
Beside her, a tall man with a warm smile and a joyous air around him leaned against the back of her chair.
"Mom, Dad, this is Lena; the Most Sarcastic and Chronically Lazy Matriarch of House Black!" Tonks cried as she announced Lena's title like a squire would in court.
Lena went with it.
She raised her nose in an orphan's impression of nobility and swept into a low, gracious bow. "A pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Mrs. and Mr. Tonks," Lena declared in a solemn tone, "your Most Troublesome daughter has spoken nothing but good things about your wonderful selves."
The tone and gestures contrasted beautifully with her rainbow toe socks and ripped denim jeans that were so worn that they were practically white.
Tonks watched her parents take in Lena's appearance with a wicked grin.
A jet black AC/DC t-shirt and fingerless leather gloves (Marie had bought her a matching pair for Christmas), and a royal blue mess of curls that was pulled back to show off multiple piercings in each ear.
Andromeda Tonks' steely grey eyes softened as her gaze caught the dark rings under gunmetal eyes, and the scars littering her niece's lightly tanned skin.
And after a long moment, she gave a genuine smile that lit up everything about her.
"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Lady Black," she said firmly before rising up and folding Lena into the gentlest hug she'd ever felt. "I'm sorry I didn't know about you sooner."
Ted Tonks watched his wife meet the only family left that would acknowledge her with a soft smile, and pulled his daughter closer to him to give her a kiss on her head.
"Thank you, Nymphadora," he whispered kindly to her as Andromeda and Lena began to exchange quiet words.
Tonks didn't even correct him on the name.
—
"What exactly are you doing?" Tom demanded from the base of the wisteria tree.
"Researching, obviously," Lena countered from where she dangled upside down from a tree branch with a tome on violently destructive curses.
"For what, mass destruction?" For some reason, Tom had a rather excited gleam in his exasperated eyes.
Lena graciously ignored it and shook her head. "I've recently learned there is a Black Manor, of all things," she said as she flipped off the branch and landed in front of her friend. "My aunt took me there to give me a tour, and it's absolutely crawling with dark magic."
"And?" Tom asked with an unimpressed brow.
Lena rolled her eyes, "well some of it is wonderful and interesting, but other things are just nasty." She pulled up a glowing miniature model of the house's interior and pointed at the stairwell. "Who the fuck has a wall of house elf heads?"
Tom snorted at the revulsion on her face, but covered his amusement with a scoff. "So you're researching more dark magic? For what? Are you going to reanimate them or something?"
"Of course no—"
Lena stopped talking and stared open mouthed at Tom.
"Lena?" He asked cautiously.
"Talking door knocker! TALKING SKULL DOOR KNOCKER, TOM!"
"Oh for the love of — will you just answer my question, you ridiculous girl?"
Lena stuck her tongue out at him and sank down onto the roots of the tree. "I figure that it's almost like poison — sometimes the antidote to one is just a stronger poison, you know?"
Tom grew contemplative as he chewed on her words. "It could work," he finally said. "Which dark spell are you trying to counter?"
"Most of them," Lena said with a grin.
—
August found Lena Black racing through the halls of the Black Manor with either Marie or the Tonks' family as they rid the rooms of dirt, curses, and decay.
Lena finally met Kreacher on the fifth day she was there when Marie was arguing to keep a cursed candelabra.
"It's adorable and you know it, Lena," she asserted.
"Fine, you bloody psycho, just put it down before it sets you on fire!"
Marie did so with a triumphant grin before a horrible 'crack' made them each jump a foot in the air.
"The blood traitor brought muggle filth into the Mistress's house!" Kreacher wailed as he pulled on overly large ears.
He was a pathetic little thing, all wrinkled chapped skin that appeared to have never been washed, and a dirt stained toga that dragged behind him like a sad bridal train.
"Oi!" Lena snapped venomously.
No one insulted Marie.
Kreacher stopped wailing to glare hatefully at her. "You're my elf now, correct? Answer me!"
"Yes, Mi-mistress," Kreacher spit out with gritted teeth.
"You won't speak a word of what has happened this summer to anyone, are we clear?" Lena hissed.
No one threatened Marie.
"Y-yes, Mistress," Kreacher spat.
"You will not tell anyone anything you know about me or Marie, and you will never insult muggles or muggleborns again, understood?"
No one would dare.
Marie tugged on Lena's sleeve as the poor house elf began to sink to the floor in despair, and Lena softened slightly at the concern in her gaze.
So in a significantly warmer tone, Lena finished with: "you will go to Hogwarts and work with the other elves until I tell you otherwise, Kreacher. Do as they say and try to enjoy being out of this dark dreary house."
He disappeared with a sob and another crack, and Lena sank onto the floor to lean against a wall.
"That was better than ending up as a wall decoration, right?" She asked tiredly.
"Maybe," Marie said as she slid down next to Lena. "It's definitely better in the long run, but I don't think there are any good decisions when the situation gets as bad as that."
"Yeah," Lena agreed with a sigh. "At least now he won't undo all the changes we make to this place."
Marie laughed and whipped her head around to look at Lena. "I knew there was a reason this was going so slow."
"I didn't realize what the bugger was doing until yesterday, either — I thought I was going mad!"
"Do you reckon you can get rid of that bloody portrait yet?" Marie asked as Walburga Black woke up screaming about muggles in the house.
Again.
Lena let an evil little grin take over her face as she thought back to what she found in the wisteria tree.
"And those nasty stuffed heads too."
Marie leapt to her feet with a triumphant cackle and swept a slender arm out in front of her. "After you, oh gracious Lady Black."
"Why thank you, peasant, let's see what we can do about my wretched grandmother."
—
Andromeda Tonks was a proud woman.
Not in the arrogant or noble way she was raised to be, but in the way that came from getting thrown to the dirt and carving a life out for herself anyways.
She was also a mother, and she loved her daughter with all of her heart.
So when Nymphadora told her there was a wonderful new Black Matriarch that was raised in a muggle orphanage, Andromeda didn't know what to think.
Perhaps she expected a sullen child, or maybe greedy little thing that succumbed to the pull of power once she realized what it felt like.
She did not expect Lena Black to be an achingly familiar mix of Regulus and Sirius when they were young.
The dry wit and alarming intelligence of Regulus was tempered by the raw charisma of Sirius, and it was written all over her face when Andromeda first laid eyes on the girl.
But that steely will that edged her voice like a knife and made people listen? That quiet joy when her daughter laughed, and the guarded posture when she didn't dare hope for Andromeda's approval, but stood before her anyway?
That was purely her own, and Andromeda knew that she would love her strong, scarred little cousin as much as she loved her daughter if Lena would care for her to do so.
So when Andromeda Tonks came over to the Black Manor a few weeks after she had shown it to her niece, she wasn't as shocked as she could have been.
Andromeda had intended to show the girl what would be hers when she came of age, and to give her a place to escape to as Andromeda got her paperwork together for the adoption (if it was what Lena wished).
She did not expect to come back in four weeks to a completely renovated house.
—
"Well, what do you think, my dearest cousins?" Lena grinned as she puffed her chest in the foyer and gestured to the home. "Better than before, yes?"
"Oh, Merlin," Tonks breathed as she slowly reached her arms out to strangle Lena in a disbelieving hug.
Lena went with it as she admired the space.
Rotted wallpaper was ripped down and replaced with soft ivory paint, and stained rugs had been torn up and replaced with ebony hardwood with forest green runner rugs.
Along the walls were wrought iron lanterns filled with merry gold fire, and various pictures — both wizard and muggle — of Lena with her friends and far off places from her travels.
She even included pictures of her with her creatures, though Marie was mostly out of frame on those for legality's sake.
The mantle in the sitting room was still its grand black marble, and the furniture remained the emerald velvet behemoths they had started as.
But they were dust free and clean now, and were covered in countless pillows and warm yellow throws.
A grand piano sat by the bay windows, a cauldron sat in the far corner, and drying herbs were strung from the ceiling.
Marie was a beautiful artist, so when they ran out of pictures, she painted murals of places they had traveled together, and the creatures they'd seen, on every wall not covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves.
The house was still obviously made by a Slytherin, and there were still countless wizard artifacts — both light and dark — decorating the space.
But the random troll legs and especially nasty dark artifacts were either stored away or pawned off at Borgin and Burkes.
"What happened to Walburga?" Andromeda breathed as she tore her gaze from the de-cobwebbed chandelier above them and stared at the mural sitting where Walburga used to be.
"Oh, I brutally disintegrated her," Lena smirked as she stared at the place by the spotless staircase that the portrait once occupied.
She and Marie had gotten rid of the sooty square that had been left after Lena's assault, and painted the extremely muggle view from their orphanage room in its place.
(Out of pure spite for the Bigot that freaked Marie out when she called her a 'filthy muggle.')
Well, Marie painted it — Lena contributed the two tiny stick figures at the top that looked like they were skydiving down from the ceiling.
And she was quite proud of them.
"You…" Andromeda gawked at Lena for a full minute, before she crumpled into bellowing laughter. "Karma is such a bitch," she gasped as she wrapped the girls up in a bone crushing hug.
Oh how she loved having family.