259Disclaimer:I don't own anything to do with Harry Potter or the world he inhabits. That all belongs to J.K Rowling and presumably some other fellas.
Andromeda Black paused on the doorstep of the house that (she hoped) held the answer to all her problems, a brief shiver of fear overtaking her momentarily. The course she was about to embark upon would pit her against Albus Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards of the last century. It was enough to give even the bravest pause. His formidable grasp of magic notwithstanding, he was a master manipulator, presenting a carefully prepared façade to the public that led his so-called allies to trust him implicitly and his enemies to constantly underestimate him. To oppose him openly was tantamount to political suicide, and rare was the scheme that escaped his notice.
Yet her Black blood sung at the challenge, anticipation of the trials to come suffusing her limbs with a warmth she hadn't felt in far too long. She felt alive with the knowledge that the events set in motion tonight would shake the foundations of the wizarding world, and that it would be the Black family doing the shaking. In fact, she thought suddenly, I haven't felt this good since I cut ties with the dead wood of the family tree
FLASHBACK
"Welcome back, representatives of the most Noble and Ancient House of Black. I trust you acted as befits your blood during the school year?" came the aristocratic tones of Andromeda's mother Druella as soon as they flooed in. House Elves appeared, appropriating the five teens' trunks and relocating them to their respective rooms.
"I very much doubt it Druella." Came the harsher, raspy tones of Sirius' and Regulus' mother Walburga from beside her. "While our youngest three may have upheld the name, our eldest are nothing but a disappointment. Consorting with blood traitors, like as not mudbloods as well! I still say we should kill them Dru."
"I am aware of what you say, Burga, but this is the best course for all involved. Sirius, Andromeda, we are giving you one last chance to act as befits your station. If you refuse to cooperate, we shall have you expelled from the family and cast out to die as peasants."
"I'm afraid you don't have that power my dear aunt," began Sirius, not noticing Regulus, Narcissa and Bellatrix moving away and reaching for their wands. "all expulsions must be approved by Lord Black, who will be me in about two years. The regent appointed until I reach my majority also lacks the authority to legitimise expulsions, and I'm hardly going to sign off on my own disownment am I?" he continued, a smirk growing on his face as he watched the rage ignite in the old women's eyes.
"Well, while we anticipated this problem and hoped you weren't well-versed enough in family law to call our bluff, I believe I may have a solution. A trifle inelegant, but such is often the case when diplomacy fails." Said Druella.
"Oh?" Sirius said, arching an eyebrow "Care to clue us in?"
"Why certainly my dear nephew." She raised her wand. "Imperio."
Andromeda was stunned. Her mother had just cast an unforgivable. Had raised her wand against a family member. Loyalty to the Blacks was stressed overall in their early schooling and, even with her dislike for her mother and aunt, the conditioning held back her initial flurry of curses. Her wand appeared in her hand, but she hesitated for that crucial second.
"Ah, Andromeda," cackled Walburga cruelly "Ever my least favourite niece. Why can't you be good like Trixie and Cissy? Why do you spit on everything we stand for as Blacks?"
"Because you're an inbred piece of shit with delusions of grandeur, Auntie." Andromeda replied, with an evenness she didn't feel. Her blood was up, her hands were shaking with the magically enhanced adrenaline pouring into her system but… to raise her wand on another Black… she just couldn't. It was wrong, they were wrong, the family had hit rock bottom and there was no denying it.
She looked at Sirius, keeping one eye trained on the five wands pointed at her. There would be no help from that quarter, unless he somehow managed to throw off the Imperius curse with no training. Her eyes widened as she noted that his eyes were free of the glassy look commonly associated with Imperius victims, her suspicions confirmed when, almost too quick to follow, one eyelid came slamming down in a wink.
He is, or will be, Lord Black! The thought came unbidden. He IS the House of Black! To act against him is treachery, and those that do are unworthy of the Black name!
"It really is a shame 'Dromeda, that you refuse to see reason." Druella began, in a fair impersonation of Dumbledore. "you see, it's all for the greater good of the family. The Dark Lord will reward us with riches untold, as long as we hold true to the cause."
"There is only one Lord of the Rings. And He does not share power!" came the solemn intonation from Sirius. As everyone bar Andromeda refocused on him, his wand came up and he began firing hexes left and right. Andromeda fought to keep the laughter from bubbling up at the muggle literature reference which she doubted the others would have found funny even if they understood, and followed his example, a piercing hex shooting from the tip of her wand towards Regulus' wand hand almost before the ramifications of Sirius retaining his free will sunk in.
The hex impacted Regulus' arm just above the wrist, spinning him around with a spray of blood and forcing him to drop his wand. Her follow-up petrificus totalis went wide, but the incarcerousbehind it was dead-on, cocooning him in ropes and taking him out of the fray. Behind her, Sirius had stunned Narcissa and Druella, but run into difficulties with Bellatrix. Bellatrix, unlike Regulus and Narcissa, had inherited the Black battle-lust much like Sirius and Andromeda had, but unlike the other two surrendered fully to it. Where they fought with a slight smirk on their faces, or the occasional chuckle escaping their lips, Bellatrix lost herself to the chemical cocktail bubbling through her veins and danced between the flying spells, laughing merrily all the while. Never mind that silent spell-casting should be impossible for a thirteen year-old, the eerie laughter never ceased issuing from her lips, even as the spells she used got progressively darker and Sirius had to draw upon ever-stronger shields.
Shivering slightly in anticipation of duelling such a dangerous opponent, Andromeda refocused on Walburga just in time to see a particularly dark bludgeoning curse headed for her face. She swayed out of the way and, snapping back upright into a formal duellist's stance, returned fire with a flurry of conjured darts. Even as they were blocked they were followed up by a piercing hex variant called "the woodpecker", which acted more like a series of piercing hexes spaced a half-second apart than anything else. As that pounded Walburga's shield, she threw a pair of bludgeoning curses out to increase the pressure a little more, and then summoned a spear from the wall behind her opponent.
Walburga was not a duellist, and it showed. She had the training given to all members of the Black family and knew some truly interesting curses but that wouldn't help her here. Pinned down by a younger, stronger, more mobile opponent with nearly seven years of training on top of the Black family lessons. She was so focused on holding her shield against the multitude of attacks from the front that she totally missed the whistling coming from behind her. This proved a costly mistake as it impacted the back of her head hard enough to pitch her forward several feet and lose consciousness.
As her aunt fell forward, Andromeda took a moment to assess the situation. All her opponents except Bellatrix were down, but she was weaving between Sirius' spells without apparent effort. As she took in the scene, Bellatrix apparently noticed the lack of other battles going on and began firing at an even greater rate. Sirius, already pressed, made a mistake, stumbling into a crucio and losing an arm to the following diffindo. As he fell, trailing blood, Andromeda launched into action, firing curses as rapidly as possible, even as she saw her sister and mother begin to stir…
END FLASHBACK
She hadn't seriously duelled since that day. Not to say she didn't want to, no, her very being vibrated with the need to fight, to prove herself, to win glory for the Black name! Alas, circumstances always seemed to conspire against her, even as the war escalated she still had yet to bloody her wand. Right up until the fall of Voldemort she couldn't find a fight. She'd walk down Knockturn Alley and there'd be Aurors all over the place, the populace unusually subdued. She'd gone looking for Death Eaters on more than one occasion, after friends had died and been wounded, but been unable to find any. It seemed as though the universe was playing a massive joke on her, particularly since everywhere Sirius went he found conflict. As long as he wasn't in her company that is. Jealous husbands and fathers galore tried to kill him, even without counting the Death Eaters seeking favour with their master by ending the troublesome lordling.
She shook away the remeniscences, knowing in her heart of hearts that she would soon enough wade through rivers of blood at her lord's side, bringing the House of Black back to the top of the food chain, where it belonged. She quickly alohamora'd the door and slipped inside, freezing in astonishment as she saw a huge muggle backhand a child so hard he flew back, knocking himself unconscious on the table behind him. As another surge of magic rolled up her bond with her lord, she realised with a start that this maltreated five-year-old, lying unconscious on the floor before her, was the next Lord Black. She saw red for a moment How DARE these beasts treat her lord like this? How DARE Dumbledore put him here? And in that moment her plans underwent a drastic revision.
"You! WENCH!" the fat man yelled. "I don't know who the FUCK you think you are, just waltzing right in, but-"
"Petrificus totalus. Shut the fuck up, you son of a bitch! Bad enough you hit a child, bad enough that child is a member of the House of Black, but you hit the future Lord Potter-Black! Just how fucking stupid are you really? He is well within his rights to exterminate your line, and suffer no legal repurcussions from it. The Potters might not have done it, but he's the only one of them left now and he's as much Black as he is Potter! I had planned to polyjuice whoever was holding him into a decoy to buy me a few hours to get him out of the country, but I have a much better idea that will begin my lord's revenge. Finite! Imperio!"
Pick up a knife, She thought as hard as she possibly could. a large knife, with a dull point. She watched as the muggle waddled out of the room. While he was gone, she carefully trimmed some of the boy's hair, dropping it into the vial of polyjuice potion she had with her.
When the muggle returned with the knife, she decided to have a little fun, to watch the look in his eyes as she carried out her plan, so she reparalysed him once he'd dropped the knife and then removed the imperius, making sure to leave his jaw open for the potion.
"This is polyjuice potion. Once hair is added to it, it turns you into whoever the hair is from. A little-known effect is that it becomes permanent if you die while under the effects. And what do we have here? A knife with your fingerprints all over it? Naughty naughty." She then tipped the vial of potion down his throat and levitated the knife, pointing it first at his crotch, then raising it to his throat. She waved it back and forth before his eyes, humming a strange tune to herself. "Now, where to make the first stab I wonder? Ah, I know!" and with a wave of her wand the knife embedded itself in his stomach. Her eyes hardened and the knife twisted before pulling out, plunging in again a half-inch to the left and above. This continued until long after he was dead, his torso mutilated beyond recognition, resembling a pulped piece of fruit.
She turned and picked up her lord, cradling the unconscious boy in her arms. "Well Harry, now to get you out of here. Don't worry about a thing, because Auntie Andi is gonna take care of you from now on." At that she turned and walked out, leaving the body in the hallway to be discovered when the other muggles came down for breakfast.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SCENE BREAK~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hello, Police?"
"Yes, I was walking my dog down Privet Drive when I saw a man covered in blood walk out of number 4 and drive off." You won't be able to cover this one up Dumbledore.
(A/N):I'm writin this shite primarily for my own amusement, hence the barely-connected series of scenes this fic'll be comprised of, with various cliches surfacing. If other people like it then woopee for them, but I don't really give two shits one way or the other. criticism/suggestions are perfectly welcome, so long as you're civil about it. Flames are discouraged, but enjoyed as long as they're verbose and graphic (ie the sorting hat from Jbern's The Lie I've Lived). I play fast and loose with canon, so if that's your primary complaint, please type it up, print it out, and then shove it right up your arse.