Theodore was thrown back from the force of the explosion, and Dumbledore knelt down next to the unconscious man. His face was red and blistered from the heat of the explosion, but miraculously, he was somehow still alive.

"How is he still breathing?" Snape murmured.

"By some miracle, but he isn't going to be alive for much longer," Dumbledore replied. "Severus, I need you to take Theodore and get him to a Healer."

"Surely you're not planning on going in there by yourself."

"I will be fine Severus, but Theodore will not be unless we get him to someone who can properly heal him. Now go. I have a feeling that I can get Victoria back to us."

Dumbledore ventured into the house, and surprisingly, there was nothing there to stop him. There was a grand staircase in the middle of the room, and Dumbledore looked up it as Victoria began to make her way down the marble steps.

"Albus Dumbledore, in the flesh. I've heard a lot about you."

"Is there a name that I might call you by? Because I am clearly not talking to Victoria Weasley."

"Victoria Lestrange, you mean. And I did have a name once, but it is one that I forgot long ago. But do names really matter when you have power? After all, the Dark Lord's name is never muttered and yet people are terrified of him."

"A name itself can have power, perhaps just not the power that you're thinking of. You do not need to be strong physically to have power."

"Always the philosophical one aren't you? I suppose that you're here for the children. Well, I hate to tell you this, but you aren't going to be getting them. They're undergoing some training, which shall be done soon, if I have my way."

"And I suppose that by training, you mean torture."

Victoria shrugged her shoulders. "It all means the same thing in the end, doesn't it?"

"Torturing someone isn't training them, it's breaking them." He whipped his wand out and shouted a spell, but Victoria was quick to deflect it before shouting a spell of his own that Dumbledore just barely managed to avoid.

Victoria leaped over the edge of the staircase, landing deftly on the floor with precision that no normal eleven-year-old should have.

Dumbledore knew that he would have to be careful. He had to defeat Victoria but in a way that wouldn't permanently hurt the girl.

There was a loud squawk, and Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, swooped in, grabbing Victoria by her shoulders with his talons and flinging her against a wall hard.

Before Victoria could react, Dumbledore had torn the ring off of her finger and threw it to the ground. The stone broke into dozens of pieces, a grey smoke emanating from each piece. The ring had been destroyed, and the evil power along with it.

Victoria groaned as she sat up, she looked dazed and confused, she would look like that for at least a few hours. "What the bloody hell happened?"

"Victoria, what do you remember? Where are Quincy and Blaise?"

"All I remember is walking into the study with Quincy. We saw the ring, and then I heard whispers. It was like it was in a different language or something. That's the last thing that I remember."

"Can you walk?"

Victoria nodded her head, slowly standing up. "Dumbledore, what happened?"

"I will explain everything to you as soon as I can, but we must find Blaise and Quincy first."

Muffled shouting from upstairs quickly told Dumbledore where their location was. "Come." He said to Victoria before quickly flying up the stairs. Opening a door, he found Blaise and Quincy both tied to chairs. They were both bruised and bloody, and Victoria ran to them, but quickly retreated when she saw how the two flinched when she came close.

"Did I do this to them?" She whispered, and Dumbledore placed a hand on her shoulder. "You were not in control of yourself at the time. It's alright boys, the ring has been destroyed, and with it, the power that was controlling your friend."

When the two boys were untied, they cautiously made their way towards Victoria.

"It's really you?" Blaise asked, and Victoria nodded her head. "It's me, I promise. I can't remember any of the things that I did while under control of the rin, but I know that this…" She pointed to their bruised faces. "Is all my fault. I'm so sorry, I should have never tried to destroy the ring, I thought that I would be able to do it, but I'm just a stupid kid."

"You thought that you were doing the right thing," Dumbledore told her. "And while I wish that you wouldn't have acted so rashly, you had good intentions, and I suppose that is what truly matters. Now, I think that we should get you all to 's, so that the boys can get their wounds tended to, and so that we can ensure that no neurological damage has been done to you, Victoria."

When they arrived at the hospital, Victoria found her parents and Charlie there.

"Dumbledore wrote us, we came as soon as we could," Charlie said.

"You came all the way from Romania?"

"Well yeah, I mean, you're my little sister, and I need to make sure that you're okay-"

"Whatever were you thinking, touching a cursed object like that?!" Molly scolded her as Dumbledore brought the boys inside, and Victoria hung her head. "I'm sorry Mum-"

"Sorry doesn't even begin to cut it! You could have been seriously hurt, and just look at what happened to those boys!"

"Mum, it's not like she was trying to make this happen." Charlie protested, but Molly ignored him. "And how did you even know where your parent's house was to begin with? We never told you where it was, I made sure of that."

"I don't know, Mum!"

"Oh that's right, you don't recall anything, at least, that's what Dumbledore said. How very convenient. I thought that we could avoid having you go down the same path as your parents, but clearly I was so very wrong."

Her words struck Victoria hard. She knew the evil and vile things that her parents had done, and to be compared to that by a woman who had been like a mother to her made her burst into tears.

"Molly!" Arthur scolded his wife as Charlie tried to calm Victoria down as best as he could. "What on earth has gotten into you?!"

"I should have known it from the moment that we took you in. At first, I only did it because Dumbledore was a good friend of ours, but then you turned into such a sweet girl, I thought that maybe there was a chance. But then you got sorted into Slytherin-"

"There isn't anything wrong with being in Slytherin!" Victoria burst out. "You think that all Slytherins are evil, but that's not true! Blaise and Quincy are both in Slytherin, and they've been nothing but kind to me! When you stopped sending me letters, they were there to comfort me. Blood or not, I'm your daughter, but you haven't been treating me like that lately. Bellatrix has never been my mother, to me, it's always been you, and even when you say such cruel things to me, it's always going to be you, because that's what actual love is! Love is caring about someone, even with all of their faults, all of their weaknesses. Did I make a mistake? Yes, but it was only a mistake, so why are you treating me so horribly?!"

"Enough," Arthur said in a stern voice. "Charlie, take your sister inside, get her looked at. I'm going to have a talk with your mother and then we'll both be in."

"Okay, dad," Charlie answered. He wrapped an arm around Victoria and brought her inside, the younger girl leaning against him as she felt her heart shattering into millions of tiny pieces.