The morning started and the house came to life as a dozen people started moving about. But as the home's occupants came down to the kitchen for food the first to arrive stopped. "Morning all," Lestrange whistled while at the stove.
"Stephen, you're up?" Molly said in confusion before Andromeda and Ted walked past her to sit at the table.
"Of course, I can't laze away these days. It's summer, I have so much more to get done now that I don't have to contend with wasting hours at Hogwarts," Lestrange answered back before adding the eggs to the plate. Coming over with a carafe, he stopped by his aunt and uncle. "Coffee?"
"Yes," Ted grinned as the steaming hot liquid was poured into his mug. Taking a tentative sip he smiled. "Perfect temperature."
"None for me thank you," Andromeda declined.
Being that the adults were the early risers as most of them had jobs to get to, it was odd for them to be sitting around the table while being served by a teenager. Lestrange looked at his wrist and went to the sink to wash his hands. "Sorry, it's about time for me to head out."
"And just where are you going?" Arthur inquired because he was needing to leave for the ministry shortly.
Lestrange pulled on his robe that he kept on the back of a chair and drew a very long knife from the sleeve and then laid out some rope he began to tie into a noose. "Wandsworth, I need to take out some frustration due to your idiot son, better them than him right?"
"Wait, are you going to kill someone," Nymphadora stood up and moved into Lestrange's path.
"A few," Lestrange answered, trying to step around his cousin who was blocking him from getting around her. "Get out of my way."
"That's murder!" Nymphadora shouted.
"I'm aware, I'm very good at it," Lestrange reminded the people in the room.
"I'm not going to let you go," Nymphadora said as she drew her wand threateningly.
"It's not up to you, Uncle Ted's helping me," pointing behind her, making her turn her head in shock that her own father was going to assist in committing crimes.
Ted just shook his head because everyone but his wife had looked at him. "You just got played sweetie," he said as the sound of the back door shutting made the auror rush outside.
Coming back in with a dejected look on her face, the metamorph flopped down in her chair. "He's gone," Nymphadora said in dismay.
"He does that," Andromeda flatly stated before lifting her cup of tea.
"We'll alert Madam Bones to this, see if we can track him by the trace," Kingsley said as the partners ran towards the floo.
"Why do you not try to stop him?" Minerva said incredulously to the boy's aunt.
"My nephew has the same madness that consumes Bella," Andromeda glared at the professor. "He needs to do this, lest he turns it onto the people who draw his ire."
"Bella was never this bad until she joined the Dark Wanker," Sirius disagreed because the dark witch only cursed students in Hogwarts, but never outright killed anyone.
"No, Bella never had an outlet for any of her psychopathy. Which is why the very moment that monster sunk his claws into her, she became a blight on anyone and anything that crossed her path," Andromeda stated as if Bellatrix had as much freedom as her son did then she would have racked up an impressive body count before she graduated. "My nephew recognizes his bloodlust, and tries to mitigate the damage he does by targeting the types of people that are like himself."
"So unless you have a cure for his condition, then be glad that he has not turned your castle into a bloodbath," Andromeda said to Minerva. "Because from what I have seen last night, at least one person in this very household would have their body parts strewn on the lawn otherwise."
The unpleasant conversation put a damper on any other talks until the children started to come down for breakfast. Molly was busy at the stove, keeping her mind off of the dangerous teen that would be staying with them over the summer. "Huh, where's Stephen?" Rose asked.
"Out slaughtering the innocent, the disgusting freak," Sirius pointed at the door.
"I am not a FREAK!" Rose screamed loudly, startling everyone with the outburst.
Hermione reached out and gently touched Rose on the arm. "No one called you a freak, you are not a freak. And I think everyone just learned that word is off limits in this household," Hermione said as she nodded her head at the adults.
"Yeah, um… Rose, why did you fre- why do you not like that word?" Remus said, stopping himself to correct how he was speaking.
Rose sat down in the chair and looked at the plate in front of her. "The Dursleys called me that, they- I… didn't even know my name was Rose until I was four, I thought it was Freak. They called everything I did freakish, they punished me all the time for accidental magic and I hated it," Rose answered, causing those who hadn't heard this tale before to be horrified. "And Stephen was the one who helped me get over that."
Molly sat down at the table because from her understanding Rose and Stephen seemingly knew each other before they arrived at Hogwarts. "How did he do that?"
"Stephen," Rose smiled. "He found me one day and…"
"I would be dead if it wasn't for him," saying before telling the table about the time in the cupboard when she first met her best friend, it had taken nearly an hour to get through her upbringing.
Sirius was practically vibrating in anger. "I'm going to kill the fucking Dursleys. I'm going to kill the FUCKING Dursleys."
"You're too late, he got to them first," Rose chuckled as she wiped a tear from her eye. "Uncle Vernon got drunk and tried to force himself on me so Stephen stabbed him to death. He killed them all to get me out of the house, and I never had to go back."
The door creaking open and a blood covered teenage boy stood in the doorway with a duffel bag. "Oh, good morning Rose, others," nodding to the people who looked at him as he went over and put the bloodied knife in the sink. "You look upset Rose, is everything alright? Does someone have to die?"
"I'm fine Stephen, just had to explain to them that the "F-word" is off limits," Rose chuckled as the manic wizard came over and gave her a hug.
"Okay," Lestrange hummed and rubbed the top of her head before pouring out the contents onto the table. Stacks of pounds and a few white bricks tumbled onto the table. "Anyone need some drug money or cocaine?"
"The hell did you do?" Remus balked at the pile of illegally obtained goods in front of him.
"Knocked over some drug dealers," Stephen shrugged. "Like I said, I needed to vent after last night."
"We can't keep this here," Minerva said as she drew her wand before Fred and George got in her way.
"Wait a second let's think about this," Fred stated and caused Molly to scream at them.
"You two are not doing drugs," the mother commanded.
"Not about the drugs," George held up his hands. "The money."
Fred nodded. "We could get rid of the drugs, but the money. We're fighting a war against You-Know-Who, and compared to just the money the Malfoy's have, I mean…"
Andromeda nodded her head. "Unless we start diving into the Hogwarts vaults, we'd be reliant on Sirius financing everything and even that's no match for all the money that monster has access to from the families that he's branded."
Sirius groaned as while he was fully committed to putting down the Dark Wanker, even his family's money wouldn't be enough on its own. "I cannot believe I'm saying this but Lestrange's penchant for attacking criminals might benefit us, this is a hundred thousand pounds. The goblins won't care where it came from, so we can use twenty thousand galleons to start making plans."
Ginny looked at the money and shrugged. "I mean it's probably better than Lestrange hitting an armored truck again. At least then he's only taking money from criminals."
"He did what?" Minerva scoffed that Ginevra knew of this crime spree.
"Yeah, I got about two million pounds out of that," Lestrange said smugly. "Set me up real nice."
"Two million," Ron gulped as he envisioned that much money. "How?"
"Like I told the other girls, purebloods don't exist to the muggles," Lestrange smirked. "We have no paper trails to follow, most bobbies wouldn't believe any victims who tell them some magical people popped in and took their stuff; and if somehow the story made its way to an officer who did know how to report it to the aurors, they'd just send an obliviation squad and give the pureblood a warning."
"Since only certain members of the government and muggleborn owned businesses have any protections against magic, then the rest of the populace is practically at their mercy."
"Disillusionment so you can't be seen, some muggle repelling charms, confounding, obliviating, you can imperius whoever you need and they are defenseless against that. Apparate in and out. Unlocking spells, switching spells, vanishing your way through, they have no way to stop you. Whatever you want to take or do to the muggles you can," Lestrange shrugged.
The adults gulped because it was quite a nasty notion that muggles were so susceptible to being victimized. It would stand to reason that if a witch or wizard got it into their head that they could get what they wanted this easily then it would begin to have drastic effects on magical and muggle relations. And now they would wonder just how many people they knew that had done this.
"Okay," Minerva sighed as she vanished the cocaine from the table and then cast a few extra cleaning charms to make sure all the residue was gone. "But you will keep your targets to muggle criminals."
For the time being Lestrange only attacking bad people and taking their ill gotten gains was the best she could get out of him.
"I can agree to that, I'm already planning to get a few million pounds," Lestrange nodded and now he had the attention of the entire table. "The Baker Street robbery."
"You are not seriously considering robbing a bank?!" Mr. Granger scoffed because he was aware of that infamous burglary.
"No no no, I need to get to the men who did it," Lestrange shook his head because he could see how they might assume that. "See, only about two hundred thousand pounds had been recovered but they stole up to three million, the robbers never confessed to where it was. Now it's just the business of tracking them down to find out where it all went."
"And you can use legilimency to get the information out of them," Hermione said as she deduced that was his method. "Oh that's brilliant."
Rubbing the back of his head, Lestrange shrugged. "Well I was just going to torture them into telling me, but that's probably faster," conceding that point to the brunette.
Fred and George clambered over to Lestrange's side. "We want in. It's a heist of a bank heist."
"My sons are not going to become criminals," Molly protested.
"Molly, you and your sons are a part of a vigilante militia operating outside of ministry jurisdiction, you've already committed a number of crimes," Ted reminded the mother that this whole operation wasn't legal to begin with.
"But that can come later," Rose said as she stopped Lestrange from going off on a crime spree.
"Of course my dear," Stephen said placatingly. "The criminals will still be there later. How about I give you a tour of the home, Great Aunt Walburga's portrait has been dying to meet you."
"I think I would like that," Rose nodded and offered her hand.
Taking it in his own, Stephen led Rose out of the kitchen. "You saw the foyer when you arrived, down this hallway is her portrait." Rapping his knuckles on the wall the curtains flung open and the painting looked down. "Great Aunt Walburga, this is the lovely Rose Lily Potter."
"Hello ma'am," Rose curtsied.
"Good morning half-blood," the portrait said while looking down at the witch.
"Walburga," Stephen warned. "You know that's uncalled for."
"She is, but fine, you and most of the world are half-bloods now anyway," the woman scoffed as she had been informed years ago that only Narcissa had produced a pureblood child and that was likely all she would get. "After learning that upstart is a half-blood bastard and had fooled all the purebloods, what does it matter?"
"Aunt Andromeda is here Great Aunt Walburga," Stephen informed the portrait that one of her nieces had arrived. "She's going to be educating Rose in the Black ways."
"Oh so you finally stopped putzing around," Walburga sneered because it had taken far too long in her opinion for the boy to be forward with the girl.
"Relationships take time these days, I couldn't simply put a collar on her," Lestrange rolled his eyes before looking at Rose with a grin. "Then again."
Rose blushed at how Stephen licked his lips while leering at her. "Oh please, if anyone's going on the leash it's you."
"That right young lady, you show him who's the real boss," Walburga encouraged as the pair started to head off down the hall.
"We'll need to ensure that the Grangers don't come down this way," Stephen whispered under his breath, "She's gotten better about half-bloods because I explained to her who my father is, but muggleborns and muggles, that's never going to change. Tell Granger to use the excuse that she's from a defunct squib line of the Dagworth-Grangers if she's ever confronted by the portrait."
"Is she?" Rose inquired if her friend was really from a pureblood line.
Shaking his head Stephen held open the door for his girlfriend. "No, just a similar enough last name, hell I doubt the Smith children in Hogwarts are even related to Hepzibah Smith that my father killed, but it's useful enough to keep people at bay as family historians are not cheap and rare as well."
"This is the drawing room," Lestrange motioned to the room that overlooked the street outside.
Stepping through she saw many cabinets with some odd trinkets before stopping in front of the piano. "Stephen, you remember that promise you gave me," Rose said as she dragged her hand along the ivory keys.
"I did, didn't I," Stephen nodded his head before sitting on the bench as Rose got herself comfortable on the couch as he began to play.
Relaxing as the soothing song carried in the air, she was content to watch his hands flutter across the white and black keys. For the next few minutes nothing else existed in the world but the two of them and the song. Once the final key was struck, Lestrange sat still at the piano for a while before sighing. "I liked that," turning to face Rose.
"I did too," Rose smiled before noticing that his playing had drawn a bit of a crowd from the rest of the house. "We'll have to find time to just come down here and forget about everything else."
Smiling back at her, Lestrange offered his hand, and Rose took it only this time she pulled herself in closer to peck Stephen on the lips. "Is there anywhere else that's interesting in the house?"
"Well there's my workshop and the dueling field in the basement, but you'll be spending plenty of time down there with Aunt Andy. Other than that the only interesting thing would be the family tapestry, it shows all the members of the Black Family," Stephen warned the girl.
"Even yours?" Rose asked and Lestrange nodded his head.
It seemed so innocent, but to Sirius the way that she asked seemed like she knew something he didn't. You wouldn't ask about that when it was known that Bellatrix had married Rodolphus and even if it had been Rabastan that she'd been impregnated by that would not make much of an interesting difference, so he would have to take a look upstairs later.
"But I'd much rather show you the places around the neighborhood that are worthwhile," Stephen said to the witch because it wouldn't really be interesting to stay cooped up in the home for the rest of the summer.
"She can't go out, it's dangerous," Remus protested Rose leaving the safety of the headquarters.
"Oh please Wolfy, she'll be with me, no one would be stupid enough to attack her then," Lestrange told the werewolf.
"It's not safe," Sirius stomped his foot because he didn't like the idea of Rose going outside.
"It's a muggle neighborhood, you grew up around here," Stephen spat back. "The Death Eaters wouldn't be searching around this area anyway. Hell they wouldn't need to since everyone would know she's been moved here after the Granger home was vacated."
"They couldn't find this home," Minerva stated firmly as she was also against Ms. Potter going outside.
"Again, they wouldn't need to you buffoons," Lestrange tossed up a hand at Sirius. "Everyone knows that he is her godfather and the minions saw you last night. It is so obvious that even idiots like Crabbe and Goyle, if me and Voldie hadn't killed them in the graveyard, could figure out she was at the Black home. The only reason they aren't attacking is because it would be a protracted battle that would draw ministry attention."
Alastor grumbled. "Fuck we never considered that when we chose the place."
"Yeah, it's not what I would have done," Lestrange stated as he started to move Rose out of the room so he could take her to a few locations. There was a water park just outside of London that he was going to suggest they spend a day at.
"Well what would you have done?" Sirius huffed in annoyance that his cousin was poking holes in their plans.
"What I already did, buy a yacht under a false name using untraceable money, put a number of charms on the boat, sailed it out to the middle of the English Channel where I left it close enough to apparate to and from both sides, giving an escape route into French territories, get fake passports and set up identities in case we need to flee," Stephen smirked as he saw the others had deflated.
"Oh that reminds me, I assume if I was to abscond with you out of Britain, you'd want Granger and the She-Weasley to come with?" Lestrange asked Rose, who nodded slowly. "Alright, you two I'll make some documents for you both later, there should be some books in the library that teach French since you'll need them to fit in. But right now, Rose and I are going to get some pizza."
"Actually pizza sounds great," Ginny sighed because mum's cooking was one thing but for the last couple of weeks she and the rest of her family had been stuck up in headquarters because the Burrow was too well known to be put under fidelius. "Do you mind if I tag along?"
"Sure," Rose shrugged. "We 'kids' can get out of the old people's hair for a couple of hours."