I know that my postings have been a little behind, but real life has gotten a bit more real and demanding. My muse did not feel like working while on vacation very much, so it took me the week to get this chapter finished. I really hope that you all enjoy it. Thank you all so much for the reviews, follows and favorites. You guys are the bee's knees.

To Serve the Noble House of Black

Chapter 5

As these memories returned and settled upon her, she cried for all that they had both lost and what they could never have. She was only slightly relieved that he had been joined by Harry and Remus in death. The marauders and son were reunited for their next great adventure. She now longed for the ability to join them…

"Ok Miss Granger, enough of the tears, there is work to be done and much more that you need to learn before the end." Said the portrait looking down at the witch below with a look of disdain upon her face.

"Why won't you let me die?" asked Hermione with tear filled eyes. "He is gone, they are all gone. There is nothing left to do. This is the end." Closing her eyes once more, she let her head fall forward, her hair though matted, obscured her vision and the tears that rolled down her face.

Giving the young witch a moment to catch her breath before beginning again, Walburga left her frame and traveled to the library to see if she could collect any other Black relatives that would speak to Hermione and provide her with the information she would need going back. Finding Phineas Nigellus Black and Cedrella Black Weasley, she roughly ordered them to join her in the portraits by the stairway.

Arriving back by the stairway she decided that she must get a bit more direct with the witch that would save their world. It was too late for her and Cedrella. And Phineas had been gone for much too long, but their children should not have died at the whim of "Him" or rather them. Her love, Orion should have had the opportunity to live to an old age with someone that would love him unconditionally and her boys should have had the same opportunity. He had destroyed their world and it was up to their combined efforts to save them.

"Miss Granger", barked Walburga sharply before deciding that it may not be the way to truly reach the witch, moderated her tone a bit more and said "Hermione, enough of this. You have survived all these atrocities. You are still alive, and you know what has happened to our world because of the narrow mindedness of certain individuals. The undying belief in one person has brought us to this point."

The house shuddered again as the wards were beat upon. Kreacher snapped his fingers once again and the shaking stopped.

Hermione cleared the hair from her eyes with shaking hands and stared at the portrait in front of her. The use of her first name, from the portrait of the witch that had spewed such vicious words towards her and those that she loved, made her feel like she may be becoming a bit more unhinged that she first believed. Maybe she was dead already and this was her punishment for not being smart enough, fast enough or strong enough to save those loved ones. She didn't notice that others had joined the portraits around her, so narrowed was her gaze.

"I survived it all by the skin of my teeth." Began Hermione, her hands continuing to shake and her teeth beginning to chatter. Her head was pounding again with all that she had learned. "I don't want to do this anymore. They are going to kill me when they get through these bloody wards! I am the only one left. I am all alone now. Harry is gone, Sirius is gone, Remus and gods even Severus. Ron is gone, hell all of the Weasley's are gone!"

"And good riddance! The only good Weasley is a dead Weasley!" Sneered Walburga.

About to protest, Hermione was interrupted by another voice that she did not recognize.

"I think that that is a bit much Walburga, not all of my descendants were terrible. There were some that are salvageable." Stated Cedrella innocently.

"Name one." Deadpanned Walburga, looking at her niece.

"I can name more than one. There was Ronald, Percy, George, William, Charles, Frederick."

"I'll give you Ronald, for he actually tried in the end, and maybe Percival as well as he saw through the man from the beginning, but the rest of them allowed this to happen. They followed that mad man and that evil bitch that they called mother right until they didn't." Snarled Walburga. "At least you didn't mention Arthur or that hussy Ginevra."

At this conversation she was witnessing between the two feuding portraits, Hermione felt her eyes open incredibly wide, before she tried to defend the Weasley's mentioned by the Black Matriarch. To hear them talk about the family that she had once thought of as her own even knowing now the duplicity of Molly Weasley, had not prepared her to hear, what she heard next.

"Yes, well I was terribly disappointed in my son for marrying that particular Prewitt. He had so many more options out there, but she was persistent." Replied the portrait of Cedrella Weasley, nee Black before continuing.

"And I honestly don't quite believe that little Ginevra was truly a Weasley. All those sons and then when he called it quits, comes a daughter? That was a little hard to swallow and as I was already deceased by then, my portrait was regulated to the attic. It was only by the intervention of Percival that I was moved back into the living quarters of the house. That I was able to witness so much that had been done to destroy our world and the ones responsible for it. But Poor Ronald tried to do the right thing and stop that harridan and her whelp. He was cut down by that bitch when he tried to stop her from hurting Mr. Potter. "

This news caused Hermione to sit a little straighter and to gasp. She had not known that Harry and Ron had been together when Harry was killed.

They had been separated when the Muggleborn registration remained and Hermione continued to evade it. Harry had gone to Hogwarts to reconnect with Ginny and speak with the remaining professors regarding these absurd regulations that had not been retracted, even with Kingsley as the Minister and so many of the Death Eaters captured. Ron had been tasked with going home to his family and seeing if the Order was going to try and intervene in the ruling of the Wizengamot and what the Ministry was continuing to propagate even after the demise of the Dark Lord.

Hermione had gone into hiding once again. A tent, the remaining money from her once well-padded University fund, that at once she had laughed about, with thoughts that she would always be a witch and that her future would remain in the wizarding world. It was now virtually nonexistent and there was nowhere left to hide either in Wizarding England or in the muggle world as the wizards had discovered ways to trace her there as well.

Now trying to concentrate once more on what was being said between the portraits that had gathered near to where she lay, her heart grew colder as she learned more about her best friend's final days and moments.

"I can still hear poor Ronald yelling as that little hussy bound her new husband to the door of that awful dwelling that Arthur was always trying to upgrade for that ungrateful bitch. She could have had a proper home for her children, but she refused to be associated with the Black family that she married into. If she didn't want to be associated with the Black family, she should not have married into it. But oh, she wanted the money, but by disassociating with us Blacks, she lost that money. You would have thought that she would have learned." Ranted Cedrella

Swallowing down the bile that was quickly coming up her throat and pushing to be spewed all around her, she had to ask.

"What do you mean she bound her new husband to the door? Who was Ginny married to? How did they hurt Harry? Why couldn't Ron stop her?" Hermione asked the portrait's that surrounded her. They looked onto her with varying degrees of pity that she had never experienced before from the likes of them.

"My dear girl, you really were left out of the loop, but of course you couldn't be included because you would have tried to stop them." Said the portrait of Phineas Nigellus.

"That girl would have fought tooth and nail to save poor Mr. Potter to the detriment of herself and all that she can now accomplish. It is much better that she hears the worst from us so that she can prevent that from ever happening." Said Walburga

Growing more confused, Hermione asked again.

"What happened to Harry? What does this have to do with Ginny's husband and why couldn't Ron stop her?"

"Oh, beautiful Mistress, I know Missy Mudblood must know these things, but she is not healed, and she must be healed to move back." Croaked Kreacher.

"Walburger, will her knowing this help her on her journey? She knows what has happened to this world, I don't even know if she could handle returning with so many of her memories intact." Inserted the portrait of Phineas Nigellus.

"Please tell me what happened to my best friends before I am gone, I need to know how they died." Sobbed Hermione trying to quell some of the shaking that she was experiencing. She knew that this information was important. She knew that they were both gone but did not know the evil that took them or why.

"Ms. Granger, your friend Mr. Potter was used horribly by the Weasley family, I am sorry to say." Began Cedrella

"My daughter in law knew that Mr. Potter was taken and kept with those horrible muggles, that he lived in horrible conditions. She knew that "his" plans for Mr. Potter depended on him being kept in the dark about the magical world. That he had hoped that any help offered to him would form a bond of trust and need and she knew that by their first meeting at Kings Cross Station, that she would become the maternal figure that he needed. That her Ronald would become the best friend slash brother figure and she and he planned for that whelp of hers to become a love interest for the boy in the future. She wrapped that boy in the ginger blanket of the Weasley's and Prewitt's to tie him back to the red hair and fairness of his mother."

"The lengths that, that bitch went to with that boy. If she had planned half as well for her own children, well Ronald may have been a better student at the very least. If you hadn't carried him through, that boy wouldn't have made it out of his first year." Seeing Hermione about to object, she continued quickly. "Don't get me wrong, the boy was intelligent, he just had too much entitlement that was served to him by his mother and her ridiculous beliefs." offered Walburga from her frame.

"But that is neither here nor there." Inserted Phineas, "There is more for her to learn."

Trying to absorb the conversation around her, her eyes kept coming back to Walburga.

"That is what we are here for" began Walburga again. "The fact is that she helped him raise that boy for slaughter, literally twice with the resurrection of The Dark Lord and then with the resurrection of him. They used the same damn spell and potion, but of course with her superior brewing skills, he came back stronger, better and with more of his facilities then the one that he showed the way to before. He used those boys for his own nefarious plans. It wasn't just Potter, Riddle and Snape. It was my boys and Dorea's boy, hell even the wolf was cannon fodder for his wars. He believed in Grindelwald until Grindelwald believed in his own version of the Greater Good."

Leaning forward upon hearing of the resurrection. That her best friend, her brother had been slaughtered for, Hermione growled out, her hair though limp beginning to spark. "What, do you mean Harry was used for the resurrection of him?"

With a great put-upon air, Walburga stared at the young woman in front of her, questioning herself once again if this was the one to save them?

Remembering that she was the last one standing she truthfully replied. "He used the same spell, the same ritual to return himself, that Tom Riddle used at the end of your fourth year. Where do you think he learned it? It wasn't Mr. Potters recollection of what happened at the graveyard. Where do you think Tom Riddle learned about it at the tender age of sixteen?"

"Whom do you think wrote Magick Moste Evile, Ms. Granger." Asked Phineas

"But there was nothing in there on them, not how to destroy them. There literally was one miniscule paragraph on Horcruxes." complained Hermione with an irritated whine.

"He wasn't going to let everyone know of his plans, he just needed to feed the information to one child and who better than an orphan Slytherin child who wanted to be accepted, who wanted to be more powerful than the wizard that held such disdain for him?" asked Phineas.

"That whelp of Molly's tied Potter to herself as soon as she saw him again. She bedded him and within a week swore that she was with child. She convinced him to leave the safety of Hogwarts with Minerva in charge and dragged him back to the Burrow where Molly smothered him with all the motherly love that she had and then demanded that they wed as soon as possible. Ronald, though weary of the suddenness of their nuptials, just wanted the normality of Mr. Potter being there as part of his family." Explained Cedrella.

"Percy questioned the suddenness of them bonding as well, but the others just wanted a reason to rejoice after the loss of their brother and others that they loved and cared for."

"It wasn't until the wedding had occurred that they found out that Mr. Potter had created his will after Sirius passed in order to leave everything to you in the event of his death. After the disaster that was your great escape from Gringotts left him without accessibility to his vaults nor his will, he was unable to update the contents, or even name their soon to be child as heir. Ginevra begged her mother to fix this tragedy of errors, crying that only "he" could correct this, and that it was time. "supplied Cedrella looking more frazzled then a portrait should look.

" The bitch tied him up as soon as he returned from meeting Ronald about your whereabouts. Molly had the cauldron running hot, scorching the air around them. There were the bones of a hand laying on the table as well as a particular silver instrument that the bastard left to her youngest, and Molly with wild eyes, walked up to the boy who defeated, and stabbed an athame straight into his chest, just barely missing his heart. He looked up to her in fright and asked her what she was doing, what her whelp was doing. And she replied with "We are bringing back, the greatest wizard since Merlin. The one that can save us all during these uncertain times. The one whom will help us achieve great things, with or without you. The one who has plans, great plans for this community, no longer will we have to hide. There will be no division of blood purity, there will only be power and those too weak to wield it." Said Walburga with a vindictive look in her gaze.

"Within moments she had placed Mr. Potter's blood into the cauldron as well as the hand of "his" father and a slice of skin from her own hand, not her whole hand like that fool Pettigrew used. She knew the wand movements as well as the incantation and when it seemed like the world had stopped, there rose the second coming of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore in all of his blazing glory." Snarled Phineas.