Disclaimer: Okay, now I must say that I do not own Remus, Sirius, and the assorted members of the Order. I also do not own pretty haired man +cough LUCIUS cough+ However, the thief and Mr. Massy are mine…teeheehee

Author's Note:

I'm back! Scatter in fear petty mortals +readers look at her strangely+ Or not…that's good too. Well, I but you guys are just dieing to read this chappie as … you will FINALLY … get to know the name of the main character.

Read, Review, Enjoy – Three Steps to Happiness

Your Obedient Servant,

T.F.

"Why don't you start with telling us your name?" suggested Remus calmly.

The thief seriously considered this option for several seconds, before heaving a long sigh. "Alright, alright," she conceded, adjusting herself in her chair and wincing slightly as she moved her leg. "Hello. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is-"

"Adrienne Stone. I know you recognize the name, so please, give me an answer before I'm forced to kill you."

(6)(6)(6)(6)(6)(6)

Lucius Malfoy's wand was placed precariously at the throat of a bar tender, who had decided almost as soon as Lucius entered his back room, that bar tendering was certainly not the proper career for him and that he might try teaching instead.

"I swear, mate, I ain't ne'er 'eard of any Adrienne Stone. She 'asn't come to this pub anyway. Now if I 'aven't 'eard of 'er, 'ow do you suppose I'll know where to find 'er?"

Lucius gave a long, painful sigh and began digging his wand slowly into the sensitive flesh of the man. "Mr. Massy, I'm tired. I haven't been home in a very long time and it doesn't look like I'll get to return any time in the near future. Now if you continue to deny you're knowledge of Adrienne Stone I'm going to start to get annoyed and unhappy."

Suddenly, Mr. Massy realized that all he wanted to do was keep Lucius Malfoy happy. In fact, he wanted to make Lucius Malfoy so happy that he would leave and never see Reggie Massy, bar tender of the Broke Irishman ever again, while either of them where alive and preferably after that as well.

"I think it's coming back to me. Adrienne Stone you said?" Lucius nodded wordlessly. "Right, yeah, she comes in 'ere now and again. Think she mentioned living down on Cutthroat Alley."

Lucius began to smile before stopping and re-examining Mr. Massy. "Are you sure you're telling me the truth, Mr. Massy?"

"Oh, absolutely. I swear on the hand of my wife."

Lucius looked down at Reggie's hands. "You're not married, Mr. Massy."

Reggie gave a nervous smile, hoping to live past this night. Lucius watched him awhile before lowering his wand and walking away. Massy allowed air to enter back into his lungs, turning around to collapse into a chair.

"Mr. Massy?"

"Yeah?" Reggie turned to face Lucius once more. The last thing he saw was a flash of green light. Through the roar of death he managed to hear the two whispered words 'Avada Kedavra'.

(6)(6)(6)(6)(6)(6)

"- Adrienne Gabrielle Stone," stated the thief, "I am not, despite current public opinion, a Death Eater of any sort. I am a larcenist. I have the feeling that certain parties will need that word defined." Adrienne sneered pointedly at Sirius, who sneered back, "In simple English that means I like to steal shiny, expensive things and make an enormous amount of money off of them. I pray that will suffice," she added, nodding her head to Remus.

"So you admit it!" said a red-haired woman near the other end of the table. "You're nothing more than a common thief."

"Certainly not, mum!" By the look on Adrienne's face it was clear how deeply she had just been slandered, "Nothing common about what I do mum! No one is as good as me! No one in the northern hemisphere at least. I've pulled all sorts of jobs in all sorts of places, muggle and wizard alike. Why, there isn't a lock I can't pick or a spell I can't undo."

"Speaking of that," chirped Tonks, "How did you get in here?"

Adrienne saw a bargaining tool and her chance of getting out of this freak house. "Let me loose, and I'll send you a lovely postcard from some province in China telling you all about it."

Sirius gave a cold laugh and walked over from where he had been sulking in the corner. He leaned into her face, saying coldly and deliberately: "Not. Bloody. Likely."

However, Adrienne's face stayed cheery, her smirk widening even. "Never say never, dearie. You'll end up with egg all over that ugly face of yours."

Sirius did not reply but languidly conjured up an egg that flew right into Adrienne's face.

The children tried desperately to suppress a few chuckles while Adrienne merely reached up with her suddenly free hands and wiped the egg off calmly.

"Very nice," she commented, not even looking back up at Sirius, "But I prefer mine over easy."

This time the teenagers couldn't keep in their laughter and began giggling. Remus looked at the thief strangely before taking her hand in his and waving it about experimentally.

"What?" asked Adrienne, carefully extracting her hand from his grasp.

"How did you, uh, get loose?" he inquired politely, trying to keep the potentially dangerous women calm so she would not be tempted to run.

Adrienne merely glanced up at him condescendingly. "Please. Rope? Give me more of a challenge next time, alright chum?"

"It's Remus. Remus Lupin, pleasure."

Adrienne took his outstretched hand slowly, wary of the sudden civility being shown to her.

"Now, Ms. Stone, I believe the thing we all really want to know," pressed Remus diplomatically, "Is how you managed to gain entry into this house. You would only be helping us, I assure you by…illuminating some of our weaker points."

Adrienne listened to his words carefully, attempting to decipher his meaning. What she got out of it was this:

They want to know how I got in. They are asking me for my advice. They consider me important. I alone have done this. I am amazing.

With this perceived understanding, she swelled up with pride and began quietly lecturing the attentive group.

"Well, honestly, I have to say that, on a whole, your security is bloody good. Best challenge I've had in years I'd say. I mean that shrinking curse and those memory charms…top of the line there. How many people did you put behind those?"

"I'd say about…two to three hundred," Remus replied off-handedly. Adrienne's response was a low whistle, before continuing.

"Right well…tell me, do any of you know much about wizard thievery?"

The collected group shook their heads shyly.

"Unfortunately, not very surprising. It's those schools now-a-days, never teach anything useful. Right, well, some people are under the impression that all us thieves do is use 'Finite Incantatem' to get through all the protection spells and such. But anyone will tell you that, against most spells, 'Finite Incantatem' is completely and utterly useless. The real trick to undoing spells is…"

Adrienne sat struggling with the words for several seconds. She was not in the habit of teaching people and wasn't sure how to go about. Finally, she settled for a metaphor.

"Look, whenever you cast a spell, or recite an incantation, or do any kind of magic in fact, you make an invisible tapestry; an invisible blanket if you will, that surrounds what you magic-ed. What we thieves do is find the weak spot of the spell and turn it against itself, or disable it enough that we can work around it."

"But how did you get past our Fidelius Charm?" pushed Sirius, impatient. The rest of the group nodded in accordance to this question. Adrienne face broke into a self satisfied smile.

"That is where we come to my brilliance." She leaned forward eagerly, busting with delight. "Till about two years ago, no one, scholar and thief alike, could figure out how to break that blasted thing. The main sticking point was the binding to the soul. Now, souls are very tricky things. Flighty little buggers. No one knows how they work, obviously, so no one knows how to bypass the charm."

At this point, Adrienne slid back in her chair comfortably, a smug smirk gracing her lips.

"Except me."

Sirius had sat down in a chair opposite to the thief, his head down in his hands. "If you don't tell us how you got in here soon," he muttered with annoyance, "I'm going to beat it out of you myself."

"Patience is a virtue, Mr. Black," chided Adrienne, but she did rush on to the rest of the tale. "I had been studying this for two years now. It was the only challenge left for me then and I knew I was going to be the one to figure it out. Two years and then," she banged her hands on the table loudly, making everyone jump back into their chairs. "It hit me."

She leaned forward again, trying to instill a sense of secrecy into the moment. "You all have to promise me not to reveal this to anyone else. I'm the only one who ever managed it you see."

Sirius growled dangerously, bringing the thief back to task.

"The only element that is flawed, that can possibly ruin the integrity of the charm, was the human element. The human species are a flawed collection. We make mistakes. All a secret keeper had to do was tell the confidential information to someone and, poof, that would be it. The entire tapestry would unravel so to speak. So," she continued matter-of-factly, "after that, all I had to do was move the possibility of revealing the secret into my own, self-created reality and pull on that loose piece of magic. Thus, for a span of about three, five minutes, the secret had in some form of reality, been told to me; the charm is gone, and I can get in."

Adrienne once again sat back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. "It's really brilliantly simple when you think about it."

The Order members followed suit, all leaning back in their seats, quietly marveling at how their one safety net had been whipped away as they were falling.

Adrienne looked around at the suddenly somber group. She sensed that she had just shattered what little security they had thought they had.

She almost felt sorry for them.

Almost.

A man's voice brought them all, the thief included, out of their reverie. The red-haired man confirmed Adrienne's suspicion that all the fiery head children had jumped out of the same gene pool.

"Have you…told anyone else about this?"

Adrienne stood and stretched a little, wincing at her leg. "Would you mind being a little more specific, sir?"

"That is…have you told anyone else about how to…" the man waved his hand about with frustration, not able to find the right words.

"How to break the Fidelius Charm?" Adrienne supplied, nonchalantly picking up her wand that rested on the table. "Heavens no. Hand over my major advantage to my sods of stealing brethren?' She bent down, resting the wand against the break in her leg and healing it.

The Order gave a collective sigh, grateful for the knowledge that the only person who knew how to invade their sanctuary was safely within it. Then slowly, the realization came to them…they'd have to keep her here.

"Now…" a voice permeated through the room, a succinct, cold edge ringing through it. The Order turned and what they saw mad their hearts sink. Adrienne stood at the front of the room, wand in hand, moving slowly towards the door.

"Glad to have met you," she continued, her eyes darting from face to face, "Even under these strange and unfortunate circumstances. Sorry to have troubled you all."

Her sinuous fingers brushed against the brass door handle. Instead of relaxing, she felt herself tense up even more.

The men of the order were advancing slowly on her, acting as if she was some kind of insane murderer. Her normally deft digits fumbled at the lock.

"Ms. Stone," Remus pleaded, his eyes focused on the wand, "You have to understand: If you leave this house, you are putting not only the order, but yourself in very real danger."

He watched as her eyes found his. He saw that flicker of uncertainty and the slight lowering of her wand.

The thief sighed deeply. "Listen…if I met you on the street and you asked me…I'd probably say yes. But you people are talking about some serious things that I'd rather not be involved in."

Remus returned her sigh saying, "Believe me, Adrienne…we all feel the same way."

Her hand clenched and unclenched the door handle, her physicality revealing her mental anxiety.

Sirius was just as tense, watching for an attack signal, a false move, anything.

Just give me a chance…

A/N: WHOOP! You've finally found out her name and +in deep announcer voice+ the plot thickens! I'm really interested in knowing how my technical magic thing went over. Could you understand it or no?

T.F.