Hiraeth

Chapter 4

“How do I look?” Aria asked as she twirled in the brand new robes Fred got her. 

“Very proper, like a pureblood princess,” said Ron grinning as he cuddled with her stuffed toys while Hermione didn’t even bother to lift her head to see her too engrossed in the book about Goblin culture and making notes about all the things they need to ask her account manager.

Aria just huffed as she took the book from Hermione, “pack it up and get ready, we are going to be late. Bill’s going to come soon.”

Hermione just groaned as she got up from the bed and picked her clothes to get changed in the dressing room. “Go through the list I made. I thought those are the pressing stuff you need to know. You also need to make a precautionary will too,” Hermione reminded. 

Aria groaned as she picked up the list and went through it while Ron looked over her shoulders. 

“You think we are gonna find any spare wands in your vaults?” Ron asked. 

“Why would there be wands there?” Aria asked, remembering Mr Ollivander’s speech aout using other people’s wands.

“Old pureblood families have the habit of storing dead ancestors' wands so they can use them for questionable stuff that will get you in trouble if you use your own registered wand.” Ron explained. 

“Let’s hope there are some then.” Their conversation was interrupted by Kreacher who popped into the room muttering about half blood mistress soiling the great ancient house with half breeds.

“Enough Kreacher,” said Aria, getting sick of Kreacher’s muttering as she made her way down to greet Bill. 

Bill greeted her warmly. “I got the permission to connect the floo to Gringotts but only for 5 minutes though so we need to make it quick.” 

Aria nodded her head as she shouted for Ron and Hermione to come down quickly. 

As Ron and Hermione came down she took some floo powder and passed it to them. 

“The floo address is Potter account manager, Gringotts. Don’t forget to say completely unless you want to be arrested by goblins for trespassing,” Bill warned. 

Aria nodded as she went through the floo as expected she went through her usual routine of kissing the floor and had to roll out of the way not to be stampeded by Ron who just grabbed her hand and lifted her up and turned back to make sure Hermione arrived safely. 

Aria squeaked out an apology when she saw a goblin looking at her with a sneer. “We are here to meet the Potter account manager.”

The goblin sneered at her. “Ironfang will meet you soon. Wait here until I call you and do wander if you want to be arrested for trespassing,” as he left them alone. 

“Cheerful, isn’t he,” said Ron grinning.

“Aria, do you want me to stay with you?” Bill asked, concerned for the trio’s life. 

Aria just smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry we’ll handle it.”

Bill looked unsure but left them alone not wanting to be like his mother interfering in their lives. 

After a minute. The goblin returned. “You can go now,” he said looking at Aria. As Ron and Hermione were about to follow her they were stopped by the sneering goblin. “The meeting is confidential, you are not allowed.”

“I don’t mind it. They are my advisors. I need them,” said Aria, internally panicking at the thought of going alone with her luck; she might just start a goblin war accidentally. The goblin gave her a judgemental look but let them go. 

The trio entered an ornate room filled with weapons and ancient books. In the middle of the room there was a huge ornate desk with a monocle wearing goblin going through some paperwork. Ironfang raised an eyebrow when he saw Ron and Hermione but didn’t say anything but silently indicated for them to take a seat. 

They greeted him as they sat in the uncomfortable but ornate chairs. 

“Before we proceed as part of the standard protocol we need to verify your identity,” said a grinning Ironfang as he grabbed a sharp looking dagger and a parchment towards her direction. 

Aria nodded and took the dagger and pierced her finger and let the blood drop on the parchment and cleaned the dagger free of her blood before returning the dagger back. 

Ironfang picked the parchment and looked thoroughly disappointed with the results. “Pity I was eager to watch a 16th execution.” Ron gulped as he watched Ironfang take out some boxes from the drawer.

“As I have been informed regarding your visit. These are the rings you are eligible to try. Bear in mind that you might not be selected as the next lady. I can’t help you if you aren’t selected.” Ironfang warned as he pushed the boxes towards her. 

Aria gulped and picked up the box with the Potter family insignia and was glad when the ring automatically shrunk to fit her finger. The Black family ring took a second to consider her worth but finally shrunk to fit her finger. She looked quizzically at the last box she couldn’t recognise the insignia though it did look similar to the one worn by Mr Lovegood though with the addition of thestrals. 

“Members of the house Potter and Gaunt are eligible to try their hand at the Peverell lordship; don't be disappointed when you aren’t selected. The lordship has few conditions that need to be met to be selected and it has been around 500 years since the last Peverell lord has been selected,” said Ironfang.

Aria opened the box to find a gleaming obsidian ring she felt like her soul and magic were being judged after what felt like an eternity the ring adjusted itself to fit her finger. Ron whistled lowly when the ring settled on her finger. She was pleased to see Ironfangs eyes widen a bit. 

“Now that it’s settled then. Let’s go through your finances,” said Ironfang grinning evilly as he pulled a huge pile of documents out. It took them nearly 3 hours to go through the documents. 

As they went through the tedious process Aria got the hope that they might be able to survive the war after all. After some careful thinking she set out some money aside as war fund so that they can set up safe houses and survival essentials. While Aria didn’t have the confidence that she would survive the war, Ron and Hermione didn’t want her to spend all her money on the war efforts. 

While Aria spent her time converting some of the galleons into muggle money and signing the documents. Hermione and Ron went through her vault inventory hoping to find anything useful. 

“I think I might be onto something,” Ron said excitedly pointing out to the Peverell vault inventory. “We need to visit the vaults.”

Aria nodded her head as she continued with signing the documents. 

Hermione frowned as she went through the Black vault inventory. “Why are there no details regarding these vaults pointing at vault 616 and 617.” 

“Those are the personal vaults that belong to the members of the black family who were married to other families. They are considered as dowry vaults. Since the vaults have been given away you don’t get access to them. 

The trio looked at each other silently communicating as they realised who the vaults might belong to. They need to find a way to get access to the vaults. It might be useful in their hunt.

After Aria was done talking with her manager they made their way to the vaults. Due to the restrictions on the main vaults only family members are allowed. The Potter family vault was divided into different sections. Aria made her through the vault looking for things that might be useful to them. She made her way to the wand section. There were quite a few wands. Each wand has a tag attached to it with wand core details and the previous owner's name written. Aria hoped to find some that were similar to their wands; she was able to find a willow wand with dragon heartstring and a vine wood wand with a phoenix feather; she hoped they could be used by Hermione and Ron as back up wands. She felt her heart lurch when she found her parents' wands at the end of the collection. She gently picked up her mother's wand and felt a slight warmth but placed it back not wanting to risk them getting destroyed.

She carefully picked up a few protective jewellery and made her way to the books present in the vault. From what she has gathered when the original Potter family manor has been destroyed during an attack. Most of the important stuff has been stored in the vault on her father's orders. After she was done with the Potter family vault she made her way to the black family vault. She wasn't surprised to see the vault filled mostly with dark artifacts that would have her sent directly to Azkaban if they were ever found. Still she picked up a few books on defensive magic warding and dark arts books. The Peverell family vault was the one Ron was very excited for her to visit. She felt a shiver run through her spine when she went into the vault. She dutifully picked up some books and looked through the dagger collection and ended up picking some of them as she searched for the device Ron wanted her to look out for her. According to Ron it would help them with their possession problem. It took her sometime before she finally found it. It was an intricate wooden box covered with runic etchings in various runic languages. She could feel the ancient magic as she tried to decipher the runes. She picked it up and brought it out to Ron for confirmation. 

Ron jumped excitedly when he saw the box. “It looks awesome. Bill would be so fucking jealous that we get to use it.”

Hermione looked curiously at the box wondering what’s so special about it. “Why is it so special?”

Ron looked around at the empty tunnels and placed a privacy charm before replying, “I think this might help us contain the horcruxes. This box was created some 600 years back specifically to contain dark artifacts. According to Bill it kinda absorbs all the dark magic and prevents it from affecting its surroundings. The family who made them was able to create only 3 pieces before their line died out and they never shared the secret of making those. One of the other boxes is with the bank. They only use it to store very dark artifacts that they find in the tombs before they remove the curse or destroy the artifact. Bill saw them using it once and couldn't stop talking about it until mum silenced him.”

“I guess the only thing we need to do is find the horcruxes to store them in,” said Aria as she carefully placed the box in Hermione's beaded bag.

By the time they reached grimmauld it was nearly five in the evening. Aria made some sandwiches for them as they tried to come up with ideas about how to get into Bellatrix’s vault since they all agreed that if Voldemort was insane enough to give one of his horcruxes to Lucius it’s highly probable that Bellatrix might have gotten one of them. 

“It’s so weird that he is giving out pieces of his soul as a piece of token of appreciation,” said Hermione. 

Aria just shrugged if it made their search for the horcruxes easier she didn’t care what he did with his mangled soul pieces. 

“Do you think the head dick will feel if we destroy his horcruxes?” Ron asked curiously as he bit into his sandwich.

“I am not sure. He didn’t have a body to feel anything when Aria destroyed the diary. We don’t know what happened to him when Dumbledore destroyed the ring.” Hermione replied. 

“Dumbledore thinks he doesn’t have enough soul left to feel anything. I still don’t understand what happens to the destroyed soul pieces. Do they go to the afterlife even if they are bits of soul or do they roam around the earth waiting for the whole soul to perish or do they go back to their main soul?” Aria asked. 

“What even is a main soul?” Ron asked. “If the dick had severed his soul seven times. How much soul is in each piece? If diary is half of his soul that would mean he has somewhere around less than one percent soul nagini probably has more of his soul than he does which is crazy unless souls can regrow.”

“No wonder he is acting batshit crazy,” said Hermione. “From what I could dig up he’s supposed to be this super smart genius with the highest OWLS and NEWTS. While he is still super powerful. He seems to be singularly obsessed with destroying you. He doesn’t seem to have a main end goal that’s not destroying you.”

“Who cares about end goals when he is doing enough damage to this world,” Aria pointed out. “Even the muggles are going to get suspicious if we don’t end this soon enough. Our main goal is to reduce the deaths. Try to get asylum for the muggleborns and make sure to contain the damage while also searching for horcruxes. Dumbledore might be ok with people dying while we go around aimlessly hunting all over the country. I am not ok with it. We need to do something. Be better prepared, fight harder, probably dirtier to get back at them. Just stunning spells are not gonna cut it out if we have to win.”

Ron and Hermione nodded. “I can’t believe I am the one who is saying this we need to learn and practice more spells.”

Hermione looked at Ron proudly. “We need to find an empty room to practice spells, duel we should probably get those test dummies.”

Aria nodded her head as she mentally added it to her to-do list right along with checking the wards, well she needed to first learn how to do that. After they were done eating they made it to her room to study the books she got while she went through the book Bill gifted her so she knew how to check and manipulate the wards. By the time she was done she was thoroughly exhausted and fell asleep directly. 

Aria woke up to the sound of loud noises coming from the room next to hers. She found Hermione and Ron standing in a now empty room with a huge display screen that’s covering the whole wall. 

“Good morning!” Ron said excitedly. “Fred and George set up the snitches for us in diagon alley, knockturn alley, hogsmeade and even the Burrow. They said they are going to release some snitches today in the ministry.” 

Aria just smiled. She knew how much it meant to Ron to know that his family is safe. 

“I don’t know why I feel like we are doing something illegal when I know that muggles have been using security cameras for ages,” said Hermione. 

“Yeah, it feels more like stalking and spying since they don’t know that we are looking at them,” said Aria. She felt the same way about it but she knew the benefit of having eyes all over the wizarding world. “So are we going to use this room as a base for our operations?” She asked as she looked around. “If so we need to clean it a bit, add some bookshelves, maybe a board to write down stuff and some chairs maybe add a training dummy to practice spells on.”

“We were about to do that after setting this up. I accidentally unmuted all the snitches so it got a bit chaotic,” said Ron. 

“Maybe we should try to find a way for it to alert us when there is an emergency. It would be impossible for us to alway be looking at the screen.” Hermione added pointing out the major issue they will be facing in the future.

“You should talk with fred and george first brainstorm a bit they are the ones who made these. I’ll go look for furniture,” said Aria as she left the room to find furniture to fill the room. 

As she made her way through all the rooms she noticed that most of the things were scattered and in disarray as if someone was searching for something. She wasn’t sure if it was the work of Mundungus Fletcher or Snape. She made her way to Sirius’ room hoping that Mundungus didn’t steal anything from his room. Sirius’ room somehow looked worse than other rooms in the grimmauld place. She made her way into the room while silently casting a cleaning spell to get rid of the dust and picked up the books lying on the floor and placed them back on the bookshelf and found the rolled up wallpapers of bikini clad women that Sirius removed in her fifth year saying them to be inappropriate. She carefully hung the photos of the marauders back on the wall. As she was cleaning the room Ron and Hermione came searching for her. 

“Do you want us to help clean?” Hermione asked, picking up some pieces of papers. 

Aria didn’t want their help in cleaning. It felt therapeutic to clean Sirius’ room as if saying one last goodbye. “I am good. I want to do it on my own.”

“I think that’s a letter from your mum,” said Ron, peering at the papers in Hermione's hand.  Curious, she took the letter from Hermione and went through the letter. The letter felt like tangible proof that she was cherished by her parents. “Part of the letter is missing,” said Aria, trying to find the other part curious to know what her mother heard from Bathilda Bagshot. She couldn’t find the other half of the letter but she did find the photo her mum attached with the letter and felt burning hot rage looking at its torn state. “Someone deliberately tore the photo and I’m gonna destroy the bastard who did it.”

Hermione and Ron looked at the photo recognising it. “Isn’t it one of the photos Sirius gave you a copy of?”

Aria nodded her head. “This photo should also have my mum in it. I don’t think this was done by Mundungus, it's not valuable to him to tear a part of it.”

“You think it’s Snape’s doing? Didn’t he hate your dad a lot? Must have felt jealous that someone loved your dad while no one cared about Snape,” Ron joked.

“Ron!” Hermione shouted aghast. “I don’t think Snape is petty enough to tear apart a family photo.”

“Well, He is petty enough to take out his grudge on his rival’s daughter. You must have forgotten how much of an asshole he was to us,” Ron defended.

Aria zoned out as her best friends argued about Snape silently wishing they stopped bickering and snogged each other already. 

By the time she is done cleaning the room Ron and Hermione were still arguing about Hermione’s worship of authority figures.

“Enough! Stop arguing I am done cleaning the room” said Aria. 

“Right, I am starving, let's go have something to eat,” Ron said excitedly leaving the room while Hermione followed him while Aria placed some spells on Sirius’ door to prevent intruders from entering. Her gaze fell on the only other room on the floor. She knew that it used to belong to Sirius’ brother. Curious since her godfather was always tight lipped about him made her way to the room and felt a flicker of amusement when she read the pretentious no entry board. It took her a second to recognize the name as the mysterious R.A.B they were looking out for. 

“Ron! Hermione! Come here quickly,” Aria screamed. 

Ron and Hermione ran up through the stairs worried. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” they asked panting. 

Aria simply pointed at the door. It took them a second for recognition to dawn. 

“Fuckin’ unbelievable. We spent all the time searching for him and it was right in front of us,” Ron grumbled. 

“Didn’t Sirius say how his brother was a death eater and how he thought voldemort might have killed him when he tried to quit,” Hermione wondered. 

Aria tried opening the door but found it locked so she tried a few spells to unlock the door. The room was a complete opposite of Sirius’ room filled with Slytherin paraphernalia. 

“Looks like someone is snake-faced bastard’s fanboy,” Ron joked looking at all the articles pinned to the wall.

“We need to look for the locket,” said Hermione as she searched through Regulus’ belongings. They were unable to find the locket after thoroughly searching the whole room.

“You think it’s somewhere in the house,” Ron asked as he fell on Regulus’ bed tiredly. 

“If it was, we might have found it while we were cleaning the house during the summer.” Hermione pointed out but looked dumbstruck deep in thought. 

“Everything alright?” Aria asked. 

“There was a locket we found in one of the cabinets in the drawing room. Now that I think about it, it did look remarkably similar to the fake locket,” Hermione whispered.

Now that Hermione pointed it out Aria remembered. She remembered how they passed it through the room trying to open it and how they chucked it into a bag along with other rubbish. “Kreacher nicked in loads of stuff, do you think he saved it?” Aria asked hopefully. The trio quickly rushed into the kitchen towards Kreacher’s cupboard. When they searched through Kreacher’s cupboard they couldn’t find any of the trinkets Kreacher salvaged. 

“Kreacher!” Aria shouted desperately.

Kreacher popped into the room with a loud crack and gave her a contemptuous look as he bowed to her while muttering, “traitorous master’s adopted daughter back in my mistresses house with blood traitors and mudblood. Oh how my mistress will wail if she learnt a filthy half blood is the mistress to her noble house.”

“Enough!” Aria shouted. “I forbid you to call anyone a blood traitor or mudblood.”

“I have a question for you. I want you to answer truthfully. Understand?” Aria asked as she watched as Kreacher bowed lowly looking at her hatefully. 

“Two years ago, we threw a big gold locket away while we were cleaning. Did you take it back?” Aria questioned. 

“Yes,” Kreacher muttered.

“Where is it now?” Aria asked hopefully, unable to believe that it would be this easy.

“Gone,” Kreacher whispered, showing emotion that wasn’t disgust for the first time.

“What do you mean it’s gone,” Ron asked, flabbergasted. He wanted to scream and shout. 

Aria felt rage build up in her as Kreacher informed them of how Mundungus stole Black family artifacts and had to physically stop him from hurting himself as he rambled about how he was unable to finish his orders. 

“What orders?” Aria questioned. It took them a while to get some coherent answers that they could understand and her heart broke as she heard about Regulus’ sacrifice. She had hated Kreacher for his role in Sirius’ death, still she felt pity as Kreacher sobbed about failing his master’s wishes. It must have been tough to live all these years alone trying to follow his master’s orders with only a horcrux and a deranged portrait for company, unable to talk to anyone about his task only to have his late mistress’ home invaded by people he was taught to despise.  She loved Sirius with all her heart and understood that the way he treated Kreacher was wrong. God she wished the wizarding world had therapists. She needed it heck everyone she ever met need it. 

After Kreacher was done sobbing she kindly ordered him to find Mundungus Fletcher so that they could finish master’s Regulus’ task.  She smiled serenely as she gave her final instructions. “And Kreacher if needed use force but bring him back in one piece after all we still need to interrogate him.” She took her pouch out and pulled the fake locket out and gave it to him. “I want you to have it Kreacher.”

The trio watched as Kreacher left them to find Mundungus after sobbing his little elvish heart out for nearly half an hour. They made their way to the room they dubbed as war room to try to find Mundungus using their snitch network. They were unable to find him in Diagon alley and tried looking in Knockturn alley. It was hard to find anyone in the Knockturn alley when everyone has their faces hidden under robes and some even using glamors. They had given up looking for Dung after an hour but perked up when they saw that the dark twat was about to start another meeting.

Hermione curiously observed as the meeting started. “Strange isn’t it. Bellatrix isn’t present for it. I don’t even see the Lestrange brothers.”

“Do you think they are on a mission? He did have a personal meeting with them.”

They watch as some of the death eaters report their failure in finding them and get crucioed. Hermione made some notes as they moved on to the muggleborn commission and plotted her revenge against Augustus Rookwood as he requested permission to experiment on the muggleborns.

“We need to do something we can’t have them get away with hurting innocent children and people,” said Aria trying not to throw up imagining innocent eleven years getting carted to Azkaban or worse getting experimented on by Rookwood. As she and Hermione were trying to come up with a plan she noticed that Ron remained silent looking at the screen strangely. 

“Everything alright?” they asked, looking at him with concern. 

“Yeah, I just noticed something strange. The dark lord seems almost apathetic when Thickness was talking about the muggleborn commission. As if he didn’t care about how they deal with the muggleborns.”

“I don’t see anything strange. I don’t think he or any of his followers cared for the muggleborns.” Aria pointed out. 

“That wasn’t what I was talking about. Most of the death eaters looked almost eager to participate in muggle baiting and they looked eager to get rid of muggle borns but not the dark lord he looked as if he didn’t care. I expected him to look a bit more enthusiastic, you know what I mean. The only time we see that manic obsession is when they are talking about Aria and how to find her,” Ron explained.

A look of realization dawned Hermione and looked at her friend in concern. 

“Should we cheer that he is hellbent on killing me?” Aria asked, trying to understand what they were trying to say. From the day she had entered the wizarding world being obsessed by the dark lord and his inability to kill her were the only certainties she knew. “Anyway, let’s discuss that commission.”

The trio spent the rest of the time brainstorming ideas and practicing their dueling skills. They had hoped it wouldn’t take much time for Kreacher to get hold of Mundungus but Kreacher didn’t come back the next day as they spent their time in the library as they went through the books on warding they had even learnt how to cast the fidelius. Ron groaned as he rubbed his eyes tiredly looking up from their plans. They planned on making safehouses throughout the country mostly in muggle areas and fill them with non-perishable goods and basic necessities so they can have safeplace to live in case of emergency. Hermione had come up with the idea of bunkers similar to the ones used during world war and from what she had learnt from her bank manager some of those could be bought privately they planned on contacting a food supplier to stock them up while pretending to be disguised as workers from a company that is building bunkers for billionaires interested into that sort of thing. They planned on warding them to the nines and even place some of them under the fidelius charm. The silence in the library was disturbed when they heard a shriek coming from the entryway hoping to see Kreacher; the trio ran excitedly but ran into Remus.

Remus looked amused at the trio’s clear disappointment they were trying to hide in seeing him. “I wasn’t expecting to see absolute disappointment on your faces.”

Aria shrugged as she raised her wand in his direction and asked him security questions. When Remus answered them correctly she quickly hugged him. 

“I’m glad you were okay,” Remus said looking at the dishevelled trio who looked like they were in desperate need of some sleep. “I had to be careful making sure nobody was following me before I came to visit you.” 

The trio led him to the kitchen as Remus talked about the Weasley family’s safety. Ron simply nodded his head. He had developed a habit of checking on the Burrow every half an hour making sure they were okay. They listened as Remus talked about how he heard from Fred and George that they think the trace on the dark lord’s name might be back. 

“I think grimmauld place might be watched. While I haven’t seen any death eaters in front of Grimmauld I did some scattered around the surrounding area as if they know that it’s supposed to be somewhere around this area.”

“Bellatrix and Narcissa are Blacks I am sure they and even Snape were more than eager to pass on the approximate location,” said Aria suddenly glad that Hermione added a charm on their neighbours house number plate to  make it appear like 12 to wizards so they wouldn’t find it strange that there was a number missing. 

Remus nodded his head and continued to talk about the events of the wedding after they left, adding stuff that Fred and George hadn’t told them and showed them his copy of daily prophet. 

The trio looked at the paper and none of them were surprised to see that they turned against her again. “Well, they were a bit slower than what I expected. I thought they would have begun their smear campaign months ago,” Aria said carelessly looking at her photo. 

“Then again what else can we expect from them except for disappointment,” Ron added jokingly, picking up the prophet and opening the entertainment section. 

Hermione picked up the rest of the paper. “They did print about the muggleborn commission though in the second page,” she said as she went through the article and snorted when they mentioned the study done by the unspeakables probably done by someone idiotic like Rookwood who thought their dick is better than others because they can recite their ancestors names up to seven generations.

Remus stared at the trio absolutely gobsmacked; he had expected a better reaction than nonchalance.  “You don’t look very surprised,” he pointed out.

“The ministry and the prophet lost their ability to surprise us ages ago,” remarked Aria as poured some more tea into Remus’ cup.

Remus hesitated before he asked them about the Dumbledore had given her. Aria simply confirmed that he did indeed give her a mission. She was surprised when Remus offered to join them in their mission which she quickly turned down. While having an experienced adult in their team would be nice it would be more awkward and uncomfortable in the future especially when she knew that he would disagree with some of their insane or questionable decisions. She doesn’t need anyone to question her while giving her disappointing looks while she is trying to win a war with minimum casualties.All she needed was Ron and Hermione. They are enough to ground her. 

Hermione looked puzzled. “What about Tonks? Is she alright with you going on dangerous missions with us?”

“She’ll be perfectly alright. She’ll be safe at her parents’ house.” said Remus. Hermione thought Remus’ voice was a bit cold for someone talking about their wife. “Is everything alright between you and…” 

“Everything’s alright between us,” Remus said quickly. After an embarrassed moment he finally informed them about how Tonks is having a baby.

“Oh how wonderful,” the trio cheered enthusiastically. They didn’t find any joy in Remus’ face as if having a child is something unpleasant to him and were dumbfounded when he still requested to join them. 

“I don’t think I am hearing it right. You want to leave Tonks with her parents and come with us?” Aria asked hoping he would say that she heard him wrong. She felt rage built up in her when she heard the casual indifference in his tone while trying to guilt trip her with mentioning how her father would have wanted him with her. 

“If that’s what my father wanted I am fucking glad I never remembered him,” Aria shouted. “If my father was someone who’s alright with his best friend leaving his pregnant wife alone with her parents while he tried to run away from responsibility. I am glad I don’t remember him. The father I imagined would want to know why you are trying to run away and try to make you see some sense.”

“You don’t understand,” Remus screamed.

“Then help us fucking understand,” Aria shouted back. 

“I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better judgment and I have regretted it very much ever since.”

“Fuck you dude! You can’t just marry someone and knock them up and say you regret marrying them. Nobody fucking forced you to marry her and get her pregnant. You should have thought about this before marrying someone. No, you weren’t thinking. Tonks deserved better,” Aria said calmly as the light bulbs in the room flickered as her magic lashed out. Ron and Hermione tried to control her but didn’t try harder. They knew that Lupin deserved the tongue lashing he was getting and felt pity for Tonks. They liked her. She was fun to hang out with and was nice to them whenever she hung out with them she didn’t treat them like they were babies who don’t need to know the important stuff. 

Lupin sprang to his feet. “Don’t you understand what I’ve done to my wife and my unborn child? I should never have married her, I’ve made her an outcast!”

Lupin kicked aside the chair he had overturned. “You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore’s protection at Hogwarts! You don’t know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me! Don’t you see what I’ve done? Even her own family is disgusted by our marriage. What parents want their only daughter to marry a werewolf? And the child — the child —” Lupin actually seized handfuls of his own hair; he looked quite deranged.“My kind don’t usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it — How can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!” (excerpt from the book)

“I would be ashamed of you not because you are a werewolf I don’t give a rat’s arse that you turn furry for a day in a month because you are a fucking coward who couldn’t stand up for your self. You didn’t have the courage to stand up for my dad and Sirius when they were doing something wrong, a coward who couldn’t even be bothered to check up on his dead best friend's daughter. Don’t give us some bullshit crap about how dangerous it is to have a werewolf around. My parents let you hold me when I was just born. They weren’t bothered. I wasn’t bothered but you don’t care about our opinions. you didn’t even bother to check up on me after my third year even Sirius who was on the run had bothered to get in touch with me. I didn’t even know you were my parents’ best friend until the end of the year. So stop talking about how my parents would have wanted things to be done. If they wanted things to go exactly how they wanted they should have survived. I might have given a damn then. You don’t get to guilt trip me when they would be infinitely more disappointed in you.” just to make it more clear Aria continued. “Listen to this carefully. Nobody fucking cares that you are a werewolf. If anyone is bothered fuck them. Who cares about what others think. I would be too sad and depressed if I bothered to listen to all the hate the wizarding world spews against me. The only opinion that matters is yours and your loved ones whom you are hurting by being a coward who’s first response to problems is running away from them. Tonks deserves better. Your kid deserves better.” Aria didn’t even bother to see Remus’ reaction and just left the room and went back to her room and pulled out her album. 

After sometime as she was going through her parents’ she saw Ron and Hermione standing at her door. 

“Come in. I'm not going to bite your head off,” Aria tried to joke. “Did he leave?” Aria asked even though she felt him leaving the property through the wards. 

They nodded their heads and joined her on the bed. “Just after you were done talking.”

“Did I go too far,” she asked looking at her best friends. 

“Who cares if he can get his shit together and go back to Tonks though mum would have gone batshit crazy if she ever heard me speak to an adult like that,” said Ron. 

Aria wanted to make a joke about how she doesn’t have a mum to scold her and she thought perhaps  if her mum was alive she would have joined her in scolding Remus together. 

“Tonks would be a saint if she just let Remus in without some good grovelling,” said Hermione. “Merlin if someone had done something like that I would have killed them.”

“I would have castrated them if they said they regretted it,” Aria added. Ron gulped but nodded his head indicating that he understood it. Hermione simply patted Ron’s head fondly causing Aria to snort loudly. 

It took Kreacher two more days to return back with Mundungus. The time they have spent going through their plans to rescue the muggleborns. Out of all their plans the most effective one would involve working with other people and trusting them enough to risk other people’s lives.So they are trying to come up with other ways while they are still training to be better than people double their age. Their training was extensive as they imagined all the worst case scenarios they can be stuck in and how to get away alive in those situations especially in situations where they might lose their wand. It was fun trying to learn how to throw a punch effectively. Their questioning of Mundungus hasn’t gone well as they found out how he gave it away to Dolores Umbridge. They have wiped the memory of interrogating him to make sure he doesn’t inform anyone about them just to get his hands on some gold.

“How are we going to deal with Umbridge?” Ron asked. “A ministry heist?” He joked.

“I hate to say this that’s too gryffindorish. That’s probably what Dumbledore expected us to do. But if something went wrong it’s going to destroy all our plans. Especially if we get caught or worse if the dark lord gets curious about why we openly came to the ministry. Things would get worse if he realises one of his horcrux is currently with that toad he could check up on his other horcruxes and change their locations,” said Hermione.

Aria sat silently as she thought of ways to confront the pink toad without making anyone suspicious, preferably somewhere alone. It took her a moment to come up with a plan they might pull off with the right resources. “This is going to sound wild but what if we confront her at her house. I am pretty sure she lives alone. it would be a lot easier than the ministry heist.”

“The problem is we don’t know where she lives,” Hermione pointed out. 

“We just need to find a house covered completely in girly pink colour. Super easy,” Ron joked. 

“I am sure we can find a way to track her without setting alarm bells off at the ministry.” Aria tried to convince them. 

In the end they decided to send an anonymous gift with an aramaic tracking spell they found in one of the Peverell tomes. It took them sometime to find a gift good enough that she would be willing to wear it. 

Ron stared at the expensive looking box with the brooch shaped like a cat with some expensive looking pink stones inlaid in it and to the letter Hermione is crafting carefully. They have decided to make it look like a token of appreciation from a pureblood citizen who is loving the great work she is doing while heading the commission. “I can’t believe we are spending so much money on a present for Umbitch.”

“I don’t care. All I care about is getting the locket from her,” Aria said nonchalantly as she tied a pink ribbon around the gift box.

They had sent Kreacher to send the gift through the postal owlery and were pleased to see that their plan had indeed worked when the spell had been activated when it came in contact with a touch. Getting the location was the easier part while staking the place and finding Umbridge’s daily routine and not looking suspicious was the harder part. After a week of quasi stalking Umbridge and knowing more about her daily routine than they would ever like to know about they thought they were ready to face Delores.

“Are we sure confronting her directly is a good idea or lives are gonna to toast if we ever got caught. Maybe it’s better to hide our faces like the death eaters but different like how Batman does,” said Ron excited with the prospect. 

“I wish I never introduced you to the muggle comics but you are right Dumbledore has protected us mostly whenever we did our usual crazy shit. If we get caught the ministry would be happy to let the dementors kiss. We can’t risk getting caught, especially Ron since he is supposed to be bedridden,” Hermione agreed. 

The trio spent some time studying Regulus death eater robes that Kreacher has graciously provided them with. They added some of their own twist to the robes along with some other protection spells. 

Ron whistled appreciatively as he looked at the final masterpiece. They had chosen garnet shade for the dragonhide robes mostly to hide blood stains and as a nod to their gryffindor house and a simple bronze half mask to go along with even though the mask looks like it barely covers their face they added a few charms to it so they can project a different facial illusion and to make it more complex they even changed their hair and eye colours. Aria went for a ruby red hair colour as a subtle nod to her mother while Ron thought it would be fucking hilarious to mock the Malfoys and had chosen platinum blonde as hair colour and greyish blue eyes to go with it and Hermione had opted for a golden blonde hair and blue eyes. 

“How do I look?” Ron asked, looking in the mirror. 

“You look like Lucius Malfoy’s secret son,” Aria joked. 

“That’s the look I am going for, even if the head twat finds about us in the future. I want him to get suspicious of Lucius,” said Ron, activating the voice modifier they have added.

“Something still seems missing,” said Hermione, still worrying about getting caught.

“What’s missing?” Aria asked, trying to adjust her watch she got from Sirius. 

“Wouldn’t they make a connection to us if three suspicious looking people started attacking the death eaters in the future.” Hermione asked, biting her lip. 

“Since none of us are planning to drop out and aren’t willing to have anyone else join us we can’t do anything about it. Unless you want us to cast geminio charm on ourselves,” said Ron. 

As Hermione and Ron started arguing how geminio charm cannot be used on living organisms  and how Ron should have already known this when Aria felt a lightbulb go off in her head and made a run towards her room. Seeing her running, Ron and Hermione followed her worriedly.

“Is everything alright?” they asked as they watched her go through all of her belongings and making a mess of the room as she searched for something. 

Aria finally found the book she was looking for hidden in the secret compartment she had created during the summer break before her fifth year and pointed at the book excitedly to her best friends while jumping around. Curious, Hermione took the strange nameless leather bound book from Aria’s hand and was surprised to find the book wouldn’t even budge when she tried to open it.  

“The book can be read only by Black family women,” said Aria emphasising on the women. “I don’t think you really want to know what’s in it.”

“Are you blushing?” Ron asked, looking at her concernedly. 

“No,” Aria quickly denied. 

“How did you get the book,” Hermione asked not willing to trust a Black family book yet. 

“Sirius gave it to me during the summer. Remember how I told you about how Sirius tried to give me a talk and struggled so bad and how to put him out of misery I asked that a book with the information is enough for me?”

Ron and Hermione nodded their heads remembering how Aria ran to them screaming murder while asking them help to hide her and couldn’t even look at the adults in the eyes. 

“Well he asked Andromeda for help and she suggested that I get this book. It’s some sort of rite of passage book to the Black family ladies,” Aria informed while still trying to control the blush on her face. 

“And how is a book about birds and bees going to help us,” Hermione asked condescendingly.

“It wouldn’t be of use if it’s just about birds and bees. This book is all about sex, seduction, blackmail and murder. Poor Sirius didn’t know what he was giving to me. I think he would have burnt the book if he knew the filth he was giving to his innocent goddaughter,” Aria said mischievously. 

“Come to the point,” said Ron, not liking how the conversation is going on.

Aria braced herself for the words she was about to utter, “there’s a spell in this book that was meant to be used for having some fun in the bedroom. You know how the families tend to have a fidelity clause in the contracts this charm can help you bypass the clause it essentially creates a version of you but with a different personality of yours. The spell works for an hour max and it’s advised to not use the spell for a longer time. The spell is as you might have guessed is meant to be used for menage a trois kind of stuff so you can explore a different personality in the bedroom. I thought we could use the spell so there could be six of them. The clones would be just us with the same memories but with a slight different personality. My clone could be shy or extroverted than me,” Aria tried to explain. 

“There must be a catch to it, it’s not supposed to be this easy,” said Ron doubtful. 

“There are some slight drawbacks, nothing major. Since the clone’s part of you. You might feel a bit empty as if something is missing. You might feel less empty if you are near your clone and we can’t do the spell for more than an hour without facing some mental effects.”

They looked into each other trying to silently communicate. 

“Well, six members in a team is better than just three,” Ron said finally. It took them some time convincing Hermione to agree with them. Since Aria is the only one who knows the spell she performed it on them. Just as expected from a black family spell it didn’t involve just simple wand waving but blood letting on a ceremonial athame.

It was kinda jarring to see their doubles in the room especially when they quiet different personalities especially Aria’s. Her double looked like a vicious feral cat ready to claw anyone in the face with a vicious feral grin and a calm assurance that she could destroy you  verbally or flirt you to death while Ron’s double has the confidence that the real one slightly lacked and looked so happy like an overeager puppy who’s ready to wag his tail at his owner and has the balls to flirt with Hermione’s double who looked ready to disappear and looked like a mess of social anxiety while also becoming more meaner when she felt out of order which Ron’s double seems to be into while the real Ron and Hermione looked horrified at how blatantly Ron’s double was flirting. 

Aria tried to explain the plan to their doubles only to be rebuffed by her double saying that they already knew it. 

“This is going to be a nightmare,” Hermione muttered as Ron’s double tried to flirt with her when her double stopped paying attention to him while Ron looked at his double jealously. 

As planned they reached Umbridge’s residence at 6:30 in the evening under disillusionment charms and quickly made their way to break the wards surrounding the property as they knew that Umbridge would be coming home at 7:00 in the evening. They barely had enough to wrangle Umbridge’s pet monsters into a room while the others tried to find the locket. Ron unfortunately lost in the rock paper scissors so both of them got the honour of searching Umbridge’s bedroom for the locket and by the time they were done they heard the floo chime indicating Umbridge’s arrival. They had to try hard not to groan in disgust when Umbridge used her overly fake baby voice to call her cats out. 

Having enough of the pink monstrosity Aria’s double quickly sent a silent petrificulus totalus at Umbridge who wasn’t expecting it fell down quickly. 

“We had a plan,” Hermione grumbled to which Aria’s double gave an eye roll which clearly showed how much care she had for following the plan while saying. “I got the job done and look who seems to have the locket,” she said pointing to the locket that was peeking out from Umbridge's ghastly pink cardigan. 

Hermione carefully picked up the locket from Umbridge while accidentally punching and strangling Umbridge and after making a copy of it carefully placed the locket in the runic box. 

Ron and Aria carefully tied Umbridge to a chair while Hermione’s double poured the veritaserum down Umbridge's gut and taking out Umbridge's wand away.

“Wake up bitch!” Aria shouted as she cast the counter charm. 

Umbridge woke up with a jolt and shrieked when she saw them. “Who are you? Do you know who I am? I am the senior under secretary of the minister. I will get you sent to azkaban. How dare you…” fortunately they never got to hear the rest of the sentence as Ron sent a silencing charm towards her. 

They all looked at him in surprise. “What? I have sensitive ears,” he defended himself. 

Hermione’s double countered the charm and spoke with Umbridge clearly. “You are fucking dumb if you thought we didn't know who you are before entering this ghastly hellhole. Now shut up and just answer our questions.”

It didn't take much longer for Umbridge to spill everything they wanted to know when the veritaserum finally kicked in. When they were done interrogating Umbridge was once again stunned. 

“What are we gonna do now? How are we going to save the muggleborns if Umbridge is planning on some of them getting kissed and thrown to azkaban,” Ron asked worriedly appalled with the lengths Umbridge is willing to go to get rid of muggleborns and half breeds glad that Umbridge still hasn't gotten the permission to make hunting half breeds a legal sport. 

“I don't think we can perform an imperio strong enough on her for her to not want to perform all this dastardly deeds.”

“Bare with me, I might have an idea might some dumb but if you think about it is very smart,” Aria started defending her idea before even informing them what her idea even is. 

“Your ideas are always dumb but fortunately they do work for us,” said Hermione. 

“What if instead of trying to imperiusing her and her getting over it because she is so vile what if we make her believe that the muggleborns needs to spend time in azkaban instead of getting directly kissed by dementors. Make her think that they deserve to rot in azkaban instead of sweet relief that is getting kissed by dementors…” before Aria can complete her idea everyone was in an uproar which made her more annoyed. “Let me complete the fucking sentence then we are going to rescue them from Azkaban. The Dark lord had done it once and even Sirius did it. I am sure we can make a mass breakout from Azkaban. It's going to be easier to do that than making a conspicuous ministry rescue everyday and prevents anyone from getting kissed. We can control Umbridge so she has this urge to write down the names of all the people she is going to charge beforehand on a paper and leave it on her desk and we can make Kreacher pick it up so we can rescue them before their trial. If they don't listen to us and still believe in the virtue of the ministry it's their karma.”

“Ok, maybe you were right. But how are we going to control her? We know that imperio is finnicky when we use it for a long time,” Ron asked, which caused Aria’s double to smirk. “We know way too many mind control spells than you could imagine. Who would have thought the ladies of the Black family are very into controlling their husbands.”

Aria huffed but still tried one of the spells she had learnt which made people think that the ideas they were having were their ideas and how they always felt about it like that.” 

When they were done with that Hermione obliviated Umbridge's memory and added some made up memories that would fit in the place. 

By the time they were back to Grimmauld Kreacher is waiting for them with dinner and treacle tart as dessert. Aria casted the countercharm for the spell so they were only three eating the dinner as they planned their next rescue missions. 

“What are we going to do with the people we are going to rescue? We can't just store them in our secret hideouts. They are going to get bored and we would have them all filled up,” Ron pointed out. 

“Maybe we can get them some form of asylum from other countries. But we don't know how we can get it done or anyone to help us,” Aria said sadly.

“We do know many who can help us actually,” said Hermione. “We know the Delacours they are big in the French ministry, we know Krum. I think I can write to him for help with the Bulgarian ministry. We know the Patils they are from India they are actually Indian ambassadors and have diplomatic immunity here and from what I heard from Neville. The patil sisters are returning to India because of all the political unrest. We know Cho I am not sure if she has any contacts in China. Luna has a friend Rolf scamander his grandmother i think is the head of US aurors. You know Zabini. I am not sure if he would be able to help though his family is very staunchly neutral, I am not sure if Bill and charlie have any important contacts in Egypt and Romania,” Hermione listed out everyone she can think of with foreign contacts.

“Damn we do know quite a few people,” said Ron, impressed.

It didn't take long for them to ask Fleur for help who had confirmed to them that her parents are more than willing to help if they are able to bring the refugees onto the French soil and Krum’s response was the same and charlie and Bill seemed to have few friends who were willing to help. They weren't sure how to contact the Patil sisters and Luna without their letters getting intercepted. So they had contacted Fred and George through the mirror for some help and instead of informing them their answer like any sane person would do, they smuggled Neville, Luna and Ginny into the Grimmauld place. 

“How fucking insane are you what if you were caught?” Hermione shrilled. 

“Aww. Thanks for worrying about us, we love you too. We knew what we were doing. Remus did inform us about the trick of landing directly on the last step. Can we get a group hug now,” said Fred and George using their twin speak. 

Hermione just nodded her head before the five of them attacked them. 

“Do you know how much I missed you morons? Burrow’s not the same without you guys whispering your secrets. Mum's going batshit crazy worrying about you and is channeling all her energy towards me,” Ginny complained while hugging her brother. 

“We missed you too,” said Ron hugging her tightly. 

Fred and George looked around the manor impressed with how clean it looks. 

“Kreacher cleaned it. He taught it's a shame on his family's honour for having a house that's in utter disrepair while a new lady of the house is living,” said Aria using air quotes for the term lady. 

After they were done talking pleasantries. Neville finally asked the question that was burning in their minds. Aria just smirked before answering with, “just the usual you know, planning azkaban breakout and international smuggling.”

The trio burst out laughing when they saw the gobsmacked expressions on the five of their faces. 

“This is hilarious. We were able to silence Fred and George. This is the best day of my life,” said Ron. 

“Why did you ask us to get in contact with the Patils and Luna? Sadly for you, according to our source they have already gone back to India.” 

The trio looked disappointed. “We hoped they would be willing to partner with us in our smuggling business,” Hermione continued. 

Luna smiled serenely. “I would be more than willing to help. Though I am not sure how to smuggle.” 

“Luna!” Ginny shrieked. “We are not supposed to encourage whatever shit this dumb fucking morons are getting upto.”

“I trust them though,” said Luna smiling at the trio

The trio finally informed them about their actual plans. 

“We haven't yet decided how to smuggle all the people yet. We need our plan to be foolproof otherwise we would be risking thousands of lives,” Aria confessed. 

“You should do it the Newt Scamander way,” Luna suggested brightly. 

“The what way?”

“Mr Newt Scamander once smuggled highly dangerous magical animals into America using an enchanted suitcase. He travelled through the muggle ship and went like a muggle.” 

“That's brilliant Luna,” Aria and Ron cheered. 

“But how did he go through the muggle inspection,” Hermione asked. 

“He pushed a button,” said Luna. 

“A button?” Hermione looked confused.

“Yes. It makes a false setting appear and it looks like the usual muggle stuff that are in a bag.” 

“That is brilliant,” said Hermione, very impressed. 

“Rolf thought so too, he wants to be just like his grandfather and save endangered species. He even asked me to travel with him when I am done with my studies,” Luna smiled brilliantly. 

Nobody spoke about how jealous Ginny looked at the thought of Rolf and Luna traveling together.

“You can come with us too, Ginny,” added Luna to which Ginny just smiled painfully. 

Luna promised them to get in contact with the scamanders and request their help. 

“How are you going to contact them Luna without getting intercepted?” Ron asked. 

“Why through a phone of course silly. Mr. Snuggles would be very tired if he has to travel to America every time I write to them. Mr Kowalski taught it would be nice if I just called. It would be much easier on Mr snuggles and Mr Newt Scamander agreed.”

“Of course,” Hermione mumbled. 

After they were done discussing about the smuggling business Neville finally asked the question that was on most of their minds. “Are we continuing the DA? I know you aren't coming back to Hogwarts but we need to do something to boost everyone's morale.”

The trio looked thoughtful. “It's always better to know how to fight but you need to try harder to stay hidden. Don't rebel against the Carrows or Snape openly. You guys will be the ones who are going to get hurt. Protect the firsties. Annoy the Carrows and Snape in the little ways that’s going to make their lives uncomfortable. Prank them but don't get caught.”

Hermione nodded her head. “They will be expecting you to act rashly and openly rebel against them so do the unexpected.”

When the topic of what they are going to teach them came up Ron finally suggested using the mirrors to call them and teach Ginny, Luna and Neville any spells they might find useful and they can in turn teach the DA. 

Later it soon became time for the five of them to leave Ginny spoke up. “Are you sure you don't want us to stay with you?”

“We already spoke about this Gin. Mum's going to go ballistic if four of her children didn't complete their education,” Ron said as he hugged her once more. 

“Speak for yourself mate.”

“We did complete our NEWTs.”

“You are going to be the only one”

“Not completing education.”

“Breaking mum's heart.”

Fred and George grinned looking at Ron’s gobsmacked face. “I don't believe you. You didn't complete yours. How come no one of us knew this.”

“I knew about it,” Aria grinned at the betrayed expression on Ron's face. 

“Why and when?”

“Realistically speaking people would be more willing to work for you or supply for you if you complete your education. So I suggested they complete their education. They just never informed anyone in your family because they didn't care about their NEWTs. Because having their NEWTs doesn't matter for them at the end of the day all they want to be known as the best  jokesters in your family.”

Ron nodded in understanding. “Are you sure you still need to work from the joke shop? Aren't you going to get hurt if there are any raids happening in diagon alley. 

“That's what makes it better.”

“Business is a bit low now.”

“We are mostly using our mail order option currently.”

“Having a place in the diagon alley makes it easier for us to respond if anything ever happens.”

Ron understood it but wasn't happy that the twins might get hurt but it was the path they choose for themselves and just like they are not arguing about his plans he will not argue with them.

After the five of them left after dinner. “I am glad they visited us. I missed them.”

Aria and Hermione just smiled as they came back to their battle mode as they went through the blueprint of azkaban they found in the Black family library and the trio fell asleep once again in the library.

“Foolish mistress and her foolish friends not knowing when to end things,” Kreacher muttered fondly as he transported them back to his mistress’ room.