The next morning Rose came down to see that Molly was at the stove slowly stirring a pot of water. "Mrs. Weasley?" Rose called out and made the woman jump before she turned around. "Are you alright?"
The redheaded mother opened her mouth but then closed it and shook her head. "No Rose, I'm not okay. I just learned that too many people who I entrusted to look after my children had tortured one themselves. I don't know what to do."
Coming over to rub the mother's back, Rose just sat her down at the table so she could sob. "I'm sorry you had to see all that Mrs. Weasley."
It seemed that all the fighting from last night had really drained the woman, and she looked quite hopeless at the moment. "Should I pull my children out of Hogwarts? I don't know if it is safe for them there anymore, but I can't afford to get them into Beauxbatons or Durmstrange on such short notice."
"I don't know," Rose answered. "Fred and George are set to graduate, but Ron and Ginny have a few more years. Last summer, before all this happened, I would have said they could just keep their heads down and it would be fine but… now it's not so clear, even if Stephen and I can put down Voldemort tomorrow, things in the castle are so different that I might welcome changing schools."
She heard the sound of footsteps and looked up to see Sirius standing in the doorway. "Rose I'm sorry," Sirius apologized.
Turning her head away from the man with a huff. "You've been saying that for a lot of your life. And I'm not sure I believe it, you haven't exactly gone out of your way to change your behavior at all."
"Well what do you want me to do, everything I do seems to be the wrong thing," Sirius pleaded because after yesterday it'd finally been hammered into his head enough that he understood Rose didn't need him, she had grown up enough without anyone's help but his cousin's, that she wasn't reliant on them for anything.
"I can't just tell you what to do Sirius, you have to be your own person and you need to figure out who that is," Rose told him shortly. "Everything I've seen is the same rash, reckless teenager from all the stories I've heard about you. I was told that my mother never gave my dad the time of day until he shaped up. So look at your own life and decide if you want to be stuck in the past until you are old and gray or if you want to be someone that I could have looked up to as a father figure."
"I see," Sirius nodded because he knew Rose was right, he chased skirts and played pranks all his years at Hogwarts and after getting thrown into a living hell at Azkaban when he came out he just wanted things to go back to the way they were, having some fun and even when he thought that he'd take care of Rose, he pictured it as all fun times and happiness.
Rose moved over to the stove to take care of breakfast since it seemed that Molly still wasn't in any shape to handle the task. "Do you want some breakfast Sirius?"
Taking his seat Sirius nodded. "I would like some thank you," he answered, because after all this it would seem that Rose wasn't telling him to screw off and die, which he wouldn't have faulted her. He knew he said some really nasty things last night and now he was thinking about the torture he participated in. "My god I fucked up. I left this family because I thought they were stuck in the past, too in the dark that I wanted nothing to do with them and yet when it came down to it, I did what they all would have done."
Rose listened as Sirius threw himself a pity party and she agreed, he had the notion that simply getting out of the home would change him but he never saw that he carried it all wherever he went regardless. She was raised by the Dursleys but was adamantly opposed to do what they did, overindulgence in everything, derision of others for not having as much, having more, having different. Maybe that was why she couldn't truly hate anyone.
Coming over she set a plate of food in front of her godfather and rubbed his shoulder. "If I might make a suggestion, I'm not the only person you should apologize to."
"Lestrange?" Sirius looked up at the red headed young woman.
"Not just him, I'm sure there have been others in the past that you hurt with your words or actions," Rose smiled back.
"Damn," Sirius groaned as he started mentally going through all his old pranks and schemes. "That's going to be a lot of people."
Rose returned to the stove as the door opened and more people started coming in for breakfast. As they all began to eat in silence the sound of the floo roared and heads turned to see who was coming in. The door slowly pushed open and with a yawn Stephen stepped into the room. He moved around to an open chair and slumped into it. "How'd things go?" Rose asked as she put a big plate down for him knowing that he must be hungry after spending all night at the ministry.
Rubbing his head he managed a nod. "Well we aren't going to war, so that's good," Stephen answered and took a bite of eggs.
"That is good, but why would we have gone to war," Hermione softly asked because she'd rather keep things quiet so no one got into a blowout like last night again, she was ready with her wand in case Ron started to talk at all but it would seem Ginny got to him first and told him to keep his mouth shut.
"Just that since Nymphadora and Kingsley left this shitshow and had gone to Madam Bones and told her everything, she was going to call an emergency session of the Wizengamot and when she inevitably called Minnie as a witness. She wasn't in a good headspace to cover up all of this so she'd confess to everything. The ministry would declare a state of emergency and that would force my father to act," Stephen slowly explained because he wasn't in the mood to be snarky at all.
"Considering how things were, he'd probably roll into the ministry when it was at its busiest with all of his death eaters and just start killing everybody until they surrendered. Unless Albus or I was there he'd basically be unopposed."
"Not to be condescending, I know the headmaster was always said to be stronger than him but are you really sure that you would have been able to fight off your dad?" Ginny asked.
"My father after he graduated from Hogwarts used a number of vile power amplification rituals to become more lethal, but as they worked on his adult body they could only do so much, which is why he looks so much like a monster. Still though they changed his body enough that when my mother took his seed to bear her own child, I was born with them, having either of them as my parents I was naturally going to be more powerful than the average wizard, but I've been growing with them from the start," Lestrange explained just how he wielded such impressive magical might..
"What type of rituals are we talking about?" Fred asked.
"The kind that requires you to sacrifice virgins and consume their flesh and blood," Lestrange answered smugly. "So unless you're really insecure about yourself, you probably don't need to know more details than that."
George quickly nodded his head for everyone else in the room. "No, we're good."
"Still Madam Bones would likely do what was right, not what was easy and it'd kick a hornet's nest of problems. I managed to convince her that she should bide her time and build up her forces. She'll be carefully cleaning house of any death eaters that work at the ministry for the next year or so."
"How'd you manage that Stephen?" Rose asked because from what she knew of the woman from talking to Susan Bones, she was a strict, no nonsense woman who would never have sat around when there was a wrong to be righted.
Cringing because he knew she wasn't going to like this answer. "I sort of had to confess to a majority of my crimes. She said after the dark lord is gone for good I'm going to Azkaban for at least ten years, about the only crime I did that she knows I couldn't really be charged for was when I used the killing curse on, Crabbe… or was it Goyle, anyway it was when I threw it at my father in the graveyard. Turns out the ministry decree from the last war where it was legal for anyone to strike down the dark lord by any means necessary is still in play since he's alive again, as well it'd be a waste of time to argue if this time we shouldn't kill him."
"You are not going to Azkaban for a decade," Rose snarled at her boyfriend for making that decision on his own.
"It could be longer but Madam Bones was willing to make a deal once I told her about the horcruxes, she's meeting with the Head Unspeakable about finding a way to track them down," Stephen answered. "I help them with this and they give me minimum sentencing for all the other crimes I'd been doing."
"I don't like it," Rose protested.
"It's the best deal I was ever going to get, hell if everything went the way that I wanted, I fully expected that after dad was gone they'd toss me through the Veil," Stephen shrugged before setting down his fork not even managing to finish his plate. "Sorry, I'm exhausted, I'm gonna go lie down in the drawing room for a couple of hours to get some rest."
As he moved towards the door Lestrange shook his head. "Oh and Rose," turning to give her a tired smile. "Happy birthday."
Crashing on the couch Lestrange was out like a light for the next few hours while Rose started talking with Andromeda.
"We'll begin with your wand movements," Andromeda said as she had brought the young lady down to the basement for her lessons. "Now draw your wand."
Rose flicked her wrist and the wand exited the holster into her palm and she raised it up.
"Good but could be better," Andromeda tutted while she came over and helped adjust the witch's stance. "You are standing too wide, you want to lower your profile, turn to the side, this will let you have better movement during the duel."
Rose turned so that her hips were forward.
"Now you also don't want to draw your wand before it is at the ready, try and do so in one motion, wasting time is not going to help you," Andromeda instructed and Rose practiced the motions because it was a tad more difficult to catch her wand while her hand was going up than it was to let it simply fall into her palm.
Once she had managed that to fluidity, Andromeda started on the next step. "Now you must find your opener," the mother moved around to stand next to Rose and put all the previous steps into demonstration. "Fragmente," she shouted and the crackling white spell zoomed across the room to strike the dummy, splintering it on the chest.
"An opener is that spell you want to start with," Andromeda explained the term. "It's the most important spell because like this, fragmente, descendio, inflamare, octio macnarium. That spell's movement flows into the next spell which flows into the next."
"I see," Rose nodded. "So I need to choose a spell that I'm comfortable with and that allows me to use more of them in sequence."
"Correct," Andromeda nodded to her student. "It's also important because some like the Headmaster use very esoteric spells that are unlikely to be known and thus less likely to be countered. But then you have the Dark Lord, his opener is the cruciatus or killing curse, which was frightening for many reasons. They have no spells that they flow into, the movements are a simple jab, he is deliberately showcasing he doesn't need more than a single spell to win."
"Well what spell should I use then?" Rose asked, hoping that Andromeda would tell her what to use.
"That depends on the type of spellcaster that you are," Andromeda smiled back. "My spell chain is more offensive in nature, but that comes from my upbringing, Sirius and my nephew are likely the same, even if I suspect Stephen uses less forgiving spells than either of us. But someone like Minerva will use battlefield transfiguration and conjurations because that is her specialty."
"But I don't know what type of spellcaster I am?" Rose shrugged as she tried to think of what spell she would prefer.
"I couldn't tell you that, many witches and wizards take years to get to the point that they know who they are and even if they have the same opener their chains may be different," Andromeda stated. "For now though we will make sure you have the fundamentals down pat."
Hours later Rose was sent upstairs with a book on dueling that she found was written by Professor Flitwick and she was expected to get through the first couple of chapters before her birthday party began. This allowed for the adults to start setting up for the girl's fifteenth birthday party.