Sitting around the table, if it wasn't so awkward it would be funny to see so many people glowering at one person as he was sitting right next to Rose. "So did he make up?" Hermione asked while ignoring the atmosphere.
"Not quite, but he's going to try," Rose answered. "For starters Stephen, what did you discover about You-Know-Who's resurrection? How is he still alive?"
Lestrange nodded and put down his spoon. Glancing around the table, he could see that the other members of the Order were expecting an answer. "Horcruxes, multiple," Lestrange said pointedly.
"No," Sirius gasped in shock at the mention of that particular piece of dark magic. "That's madness, multiple?"
"Yes, by my count five, maybe more," Lestrange nodded his head.
"He'd be a shell of a man," Dumbledore looked sadly across the table, he had removed much of the dark books from the restricted section after Tom had left the school, one nasty book mentioned a horcrux in relation to their history and possible uses, but it would take a madman to rediscover their method of creation and to produce a number of them truly showed how far gone Tom was.
"I'm sorry, for those of us who don't know the dark arts like a psychopath, what is a horcrux?" Rose inquired so that she and likely everyone else was able to keep up with the conversation.
"A horcrux is a repository for a portion of your soul, by breaking a piece off you can store it in an object and it will bind you to this plane of existence should you die," Lestrange answered he split a piece of food in half and ate one to offer an example. "It was invented by a wizard named Herpo the Foul, he made one and he was notoriously difficult to stop as upon his death at the hands of the crusaders, he returned to life and wreaked more havoc before anyone caught onto his identity."
"And he's made five or more?" Minerva asked because it certainly sounded like permanently defeating Voldemort would be a monumental task if he could simply come back at some unknown time and place.
"Yes but," Lestrange took a bite of his food. "Four have been destroyed."
"Four? When and how?" Moody barked.
Dumbledore hummed curiously. "I believe I know the identity of one, but so much progress already?"
"Yes, Rose did an amazing job in the Chamber," Lestrange smiled.
"The diary," Ginny said, remembering the discussion earlier when she learned that Stephen was actually on Rose's side the entire time, now she had a name for what it was. "That had a piece of his soul and Rose destroyed it."
"Correct," Stephen answered. "Of course Voldemort didn't just give one to his most loyal supporters, my uncle had his and my mother was given hers."
"Kreacher," Lestrange called out to the demented house elf.
"Young master calls?" Kreacher bowed.
"Please go to Aunt Andy's and retrieve the trunk I hid in Nymphadora's closet," Lestrange instructed.
"You hid stuff in my room," Tonks shouted angrily that her house was potentially harboring some really illegal dark magical objects.
Raising his hands placatingly. "Cousin do not worry, I simply hid it behind your box that you keep those plastic muggle toys that vibrate and," Stephen started to explain before he threw himself back to dodge the spell aimed at his head. Tonks was huffing in blind rage as she climbed over the table to get close enough to throttle her cousin. Stephen crawled under the table and caused a scene. "What are you so upset about? You were the one who bought them?"
"I will hex your bits off, get out from under the table," Tonks demanded.
"No!" Lestrange barked back. "I like my bits where they are, take Weasley's he's not using them."
Stephen rolled out from under the table and ducked behind McGonagall who was aghast at the behavior. Tonks, knowing she couldn't start throwing curses at the professors, hopped off the table and made to run around and catch her cousin with her bare hands. Of course the spectacle was amusing and soon others began to laugh at how Lestrange would keep evading Tonks.
But she was gaining on him so he had to think quick, sliding around he picked up the bowl of mashed potatoes and started to fling them in the direction of his cousin, of course he didn't rightly care about his aim and soon the twins, Hestia and Kingsley found themselves covered in the fluffy white substance. Fred and George laughed at the two before Hestia grabbed the gravy and poured it over them, they soon retaliated which devolved one entire side of the table into a food fight, before Rose grabbed her roll and nailed her godfather in the head. "Remus, we have to return fire," Sirius shouted as he took cover and loaded up his spoon with food.
Minerva stood up from her chair to try and regain control of the situation only to have to shield herself with a plate as a barrage of peas came shooting at her. "Missus Weasley, that is," Minerva tried to complain about Ginny's behavior when she got a carrot up her nose.
"Constant Vigilance," Moody barked out as he threw another carrot, lodging it in Ron's open mouth.
In all the confusion sides were made and broken numerous times, but Rose felt an arm wrap around her and pull her to the side, using the cover of chaos, Stephen snuck the witch out of the room. He reached up and pulled a piece of celery out of her hair and used the excuse to smooch her. Looking back at her with a smile he was unprepared for her to wipe some mashed potatoes on his face. She then leaned in to kiss him herself before giggling like a loon.
Their disappearance was soon noted and the adults came out of the room to see the two teens holding each other. "What?" Lestrange said as if he was innocent. "We were just snogging. Go be busybodies about someone else's love life, oh wait none of you have that."
"Stephen, play nice," Rose chastised her boyfriend. "The kitchen will have to be cleaned up from this mess, and you can't just stick it all on Kreacher."
"Shame we don't have someone in charge of a castle full of house elves," Lestrange rolled his eyes. "That would get this entire house cleaned up and cleared of whatever dark objects that aren't mine in the span of an hour. Course we could leave that all, I always heard rumors that Great Aunt Walburga had a pair of shackles in her room that would drain the blood of whoever they were placed on. Legend says it was for the muggle men she'd sneak in to sate her urges before killing them."
Sirius turned to the headmaster and argued that the castle elves should quickly come in to remove anything dangerous. "And if you ever speak about my mother and…" Sirius shivered at the very thought of her engaging in the carnal arts. "I will not rest until you are suffering a terrible fate."
"Got it cousin," Lestrange waved off. "Now, I do need to get back to business, Kreacher should have returned with the chest if nothing interrupted him."
"Actually, I have been meaning to ask Stephen?" Hermione spoke up. "How did you get in here, this house is under a fidelius."
"Oh that's easy Granger, I was in the house when the spell was cast, it wasn't hidden from me, and I also live here," Stephen happily provided the information for how he was able to subvert the spell.
"But we checked the house, no one was here?" Moody questioned. Because they had swept the property to ensure no one would notice the home vanishing.
"Easy, before you cast the fidelius did you happen to search the house for a fidelius?" Lestrange smiled at the wizard who looked amazed and shocked at the revelation.
"No way," Fred gasped.
"You put a fidelius in a fidelius?" George asked.
"Well technically, they put a fidelius around my fidelius," Stephen shrugged, he snapped his fingers. "That reminds me."
Leaning forward he whispered the secret into Rose's ear. She pulled away from him. "You naughty boy."
"Oh I'm certain we can be naughty together, now that you have a place to go where they can't find you if you wanted some time away," Lestrange grinned before moving around to the kitchen when he heard a pop. "Ah good, Kreacher got the trunk."
"Of course young master, however…" Kreacher cringed before snapping his fingers again.
There was a knocking at the door and Lestrange's smile grew wider. "Oh joy, what a wondrous occasion."
"What did you do?" Dumbledore questioned as he watched the young Lestrange move to the front door.
"Aunt Andy, Uncle Ted, what a pleasure to see you," Stephen greeted his family members as he let them in. "Let me take your coat. Did you have trouble finding the place?"
"Not at all, Kreacher gave me the note you lifted from Rose with the secret on it," Andromeda said as she passed her coat to her nephew, she had been informed of the changes going on when he came to her a few weeks ago. "That you are still here is cause enough to believe that you managed to unbungle your mistake with Ms. Potter."
"Only so much, I did a great harm to her with my actions, but that you are willing to be here is fantastic news," Stephen said as he took his uncle's hat and threw them at a coat rack which caught them for him.
"Not that I'm unhappy to see my only likable cousins, why are you here?" Sirius questioned what the purpose of Andromeda's visit was.
"My nephew informed me that you all were too busy sitting on your rumps to do anything proactive and requested that I might come along and tend to Rose's education over the summer," Andromeda said as she looked over the room. "I've been informed of what's really going on and how Rose will need the Black training."
Lestrange dragged out the trunk Kreacher had brought into the center of the room. "Alright, so the horcuxes I got were the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, that was in my mum's vault. A ring that Voldemort had kept in his childhood orphanage, it was cursed in parseltongue so if anyone other than me, Voldemort or Rose went after it, they would fall victim to its pull and they'd die from a withering curse. Then we have the locket of Salazar Slytherin, which Cousin Reggie had stolen when he betrayed the Dark Wanker."
"Reggie turned?" Sirius questioned because he was learning a lot today, that not everyone in his family had been taken by madness or evil.
"Oh yes, you weren't the first Black to go light, just the most incompetent," Lestrange laughed at how frustrated Sirius became at the derision.
"Two of Hogwarts lost artifacts," Minerva said as she came over to the cup and locket. "These must be returned to the school."
The heirlooms were pulled out of her reach and into Lestrange's awaiting palms. "I don't think so Minnie. See, these don't belong to the school. These are for the families of direct descendants. Now the last claim to the Hufflepuff line was a witch named Hepzibah Smith, but as she met her fate which made this the fourth horcrux, the only known relatives are a witch and wizard in Hogwarts, the Smiths, Sally and Zacharias. It would rightly belong to them."
"But that's only if," Albus started to speak only for Lestrange to interrupt.
"No one happened to have a letter on hand that could find its way to them stating that they may be the long lost ancestors of a Hogwarts founder and that this heirloom which I am in possession of maybe be able to prove it, at the very least it had been stolen from their departed aunt by a man who worked at Borgin and Burkes before disappearing," Stephen cut off the headmaster before he could begin. "I would be worried of course that upstanding paragons of justice and honor wouldn't ensure that a long standing wrong hadn't been corrected. Wouldn't I?"
Albus sighed and then waved his hand in concession. "And I'm sure you'd so willingly turn over the locket to the Heir of Slytherin?"
"Oh it will be, but for now both of these objects will remain here, if they are shown publicly then the one who turned them into horcruxes will know they have been discovered."
"Right," Moody agreed, since putting them on display would alert Voldemort that they had been found and if there were any more still they'd be put somewhere no one could ever find. "Can't let him know we're hunting his means of immortality."
"Which is why Sevie-Wevie here can't go blabbing about it to him," Lestrange looked to the spy. He wondered just how much had been shared with him regarding the changes, but as Dumbledore seemingly didn't know that he was Voldemort's son, it wasn't likely that he knew or at least was keeping that card close to his chest.
"I assure you, my capabilities to keep information far exceed your own," Snape glowered down at Bellatrix's son.
Offering a smirk, Lestrange turned away from the potioneer. "I'm sure that you believe that."
"Well no sense standing around," Ted clapped his hands and walked through the group. "Sirius, be a good sport and give me a tour of the place. I've always wondered what my wife's childhood home was like."
Sirius chuckled as he led Ted away, listening to his musings. "You know back in the day us muggleborns had ideas about what the Black home must be like, was it true that you slept on a pile of galleons?"
Andromeda looked over Rose. "We'll need to start from the beginning, even if Stephen had been giving you some instruction, he's not suited for an educator."
"What type of instruction are you talking about mum?" Tonks questioned this sudden change in behavior. "And why wasn't I taught this?"
"The things that Grandpa Pollux and Aunt Walburga taught my sisters and I," Andromeda answered while drawing her wand and swishing it to straighten out her daughter's robes. "I never subjected you to them because I did not think it was needed, nor did I want my daughter to be raised how I was. I left that behind, but with that monster on the loose, I will do what is needed now."
Stephen smiled and patted Rose on the shoulder. "Sorry, but this isn't going to be easy for you."
Rose now looked a little worried about what Lestrange's aunt had planned for her.
"We'll begin tomorrow, you've had a very emotionally draining day, and you deserve some rest," Andy assured the young lady before heading over to speak with the other professors.
"Would you like to go upstairs?" Stephen asked. "I'm sure we could find a few bedtime activities in my room?"
"Okay I should probably step in here," Hermione said as she pulled Rose back before she disappeared into the house with her troublemaking boyfriend, they had only just gotten back together. "We have a room."
"Shame, well I'm always up for a midnight tryst," Lestrange grinned.
"No one is trysting with anyone," Minerva stated firmly. They might be out of Hogwarts for the summer, but she was not going to allow the students to draw the headquarters into total chaos. "Now off to bed, the lot of you."
Rolling his eyes because he would say that he was going out just to be disagreeable, but after promising Rose he'd spend time with her. "Fine, we can get more stuff done in the morning anyway."
The witches and wizards that still had curfews were going up the stairs with Nymphadora as an escort because at this stage the Order wasn't trusting of Bellatrix's son, to see Sirius walking out of the library with Ted Tonks who was quite fascinated with some of the tomes that were antiques.
Ginny, Hermione and Rose went over to one door. "Ahh they put you in Aunt Cissy's old room," Lestrange nodded his head.
The twins went to their room they had co-opted. "So whose room was this?" Fred asked because they hadn't really bothered to learn about the history of the home.
"Aunt Andy's," Lestrange answered. "Check the windows, it might still have a crack in the wards from when she used to sneak out to see Uncle Ted."
"Isn't that a huge security flaw?" George inquired because that could be a way for the Death Eaters to get in.
"Not likely, only her sisters knew she had made it, and Aunt Cissy is neutral in all this so she wouldn't have to tell anyone as they wouldn't know to ask her about it," Lestrange stated.
"Oh please, that death eater whore is probably," Ron started to say before he was punched in the mouth, being that the only one's in the hallway were the children. Lestrange kneeled down to the bleeding teenage boy.
"My aunt is not a whore," Lestrange said slowly, while keeping Ron from getting up. "And she is not a death eater, she has not taken the Mark. Only Luci has."
"She still married him," Ron snarled, with some blood spitting out onto Lestrange's face.
"Not of her choice you bumbling idiot, all the daughters of the Black were lined up for arranged marriages before they were of Hogwarts age," Lestrange corrected the pureblood. "Only Andromeda escaped being married off to Novan Mulciber."
"You should be thankful you grew up in a poor pureblood family, that never aspired for more than simplicity, or else you'd be signed off to Millicent Bulstrode right about now with little Gin-Gin torn between a life of being nothing more than a bed warmer for Draco Malfoy and downing a bottle of poison to escape it all," Lestrange stood up as stomped away.
"I still cannot believe I promised Rose I wouldn't murder you in your sleep. Save me such a fucking headache," grumbling as he put a key in a lock and opened the door before stepping in and slamming it shut behind him.
"Ronald," Hermione said incredulously because it did seem like normality was returning if Stephen and Ron were feuding again. Still though, calling a woman he'd never met a whore was very rude. "That was entirely uncalled for."
"Why is he even here?!" Ron shouted because frankly he was sick of other people sticking up for Lestrange. That was a psycho that should be put in the cell next to his mother.
"Because I want him here," Rose answered firmly, because it had been her decision to forgive Stephen. "I have told you repeatedly that you are not giving Stephen a fair shake, he is my friend and my boyfriend but you don't listen. Why?"
"He's dark, dark wizards are evil, that's the end of it," Ron shouted back before going to the room he was sleeping in.
Rose screamed through her teeth before going into her room to get out of the hallway as more people started coming towards the sound of the commotion.
"What did Lestrange do now?" Sirius demanded to know as he was eager to boot the little bastard out of the home.
"Ron," Hermione corrected. "He called Narcissa Malfoy a death eater whore, Stephen popped him in the mouth."
"As he should, my baby sister was many things but a whore was not one of them," Andromeda frowned because if she had heard Molly's son speak in such a way she'd have punished him herself. "And she most definitely never took the Dark Mark."
"Mum, is it true you were almost married to Mulciber?" Nymphadora asked because she had known her mom eloped with her dad, but nothing beyond that she was just trying to get away from the family.
"Novan?" Sirius turned his head, despite being the heir, he wasn't actually aware of all the details of the contracts his parents had written and as he'd run away from home while still in Hogwarts he never learned anymore about it.
"Ugh, the creepy kid?" Remus further said, while gagging.
Nodding her head. "I didn't wish to be a pawn in Walburga's scheme to claw the Black family into more wealth, and…"
"How creepy are we talking?" Ginny inquired because it must have been bad to get pregnant and run away than stick around.
"A number of disciplinary issues, we caught him in the girl's lavatories more than once," Minerva answered because that had been one of the more problematic students and it came as no shock to find out that he'd become one of You-Know-Who's first Death Eaters.
"That wasn't even the worst of it," Andromeda shivered, remembering the way he looked at people was off putting. "He was smart too, why he rarely ever got caught but the rumors were that he liked to put first year girls under the imperius for his own entertainment."
"My only choice was to become ineligible for the contract, so I pushed things along with your father a bit faster than he was comfortable with, and took more risks to become pregnant," Andromeda answered firmly. "It was that or death. Because I was not going to become a breeder for that monster just for any of our children to be subjected to his sickness."
"Just a sick, sick man," Sirius agreed, he never held it against Andy for leaving the family but now that he knew what she was running from he agreed with it even more.
"So Lestrange might have been right, if mum and dad cared more about money than us, then Ginny could have been set up with Draco Malfoy of all people?" Fred retched.
"Your father and I would never do that to any of you," Molly assured her children. "You are free to date, love and marry whomever you wish."
"You should probably go take care of Ron's broken nose though," Nymphadora suggested to Molly that she focus on that for the moment.
"It's not the first time they've fought," George nodded. "And I think the problem is, Ron's the one who starts it."
"Yeah if someone called mum a whore, I'd probably hit them too," Ginny admitted, she really couldn't take her brother's side all the time, since he was the one that took things too far.
"Still, it's late, get some rest kids," Sirius said as the teens entered their rooms.