15 Family Matters

March 1969

In a magical castle somewhere in Scotland, a black haired woman was patrolling the halls. It was late and everyone should have been in their beds and it was her job to ensure it. As she completed her rounds of the upper part of the castle she went towards the dungeons where her house was. Had someone been around to witness her though, they would have noticed that she was not at all engrossed in the patrol. Her mind was elsewhere and it was only the familiarity of the castle she had lived in for the last seven years that allowed her to navigate the otherwise labyrinthine passageways of the castle.

As she came to the last bend around the corner of which lay the door to her house, she spotted a similar black haired witch walking by her side looking at her worry. Obviously surprised, but not wishing to make it obvious, she turned her head towards her younger sister and asked," Anyone give any issues to you little sis??". To which her younger counterpart replied," Nobody gives me any trouble you know that. They will have you to handle if they did it. They are all more scared of you than any of the professors. But you already knew that. Now tell me, what is troubling you?? You did not even register that I had walked with you for half the castle before noticing me.".

Cursing herself internally for her inattentiveness, she replied," Nothing too serious, just thinking about life after Hogwarts. I am not so sure what to do.". Her sister widened her eyes as she said," Must be something really serious if you were not even paying attention to your surroundings. You are one of the surest witches I have known. You had actually laid out your plans for life even before entering Hogwarts and have since then worked hard towards it. What could have made you so... unsure of your choices??". They gave the password and the door to their common room opened.

As they both stepped in, they were greeted by their blond haired sister sitting comfortably on the couch and motioning for them to come with her. As the three of them made their way towards their dormitory, the others in the common room gave them a wide berth. Once they had entered the room of the eldest sister and had locked and secured it, the youngest gave the oldest a letter from her pocket," This just came for you a few minutes back.". The letter had a seal from Gringotts.

Noticing the seal on it, the two younger witches looked at the elder for explanation. The eldest for her part did not even look at them as she had snatched the letter and tore it open to read. As she kept on reading it, the expression on her face first changed to sadness then a pure look of anger that was so out of place on her that the younger witches wisely kept themselves out of reach and had their wands in their hands, just as an added security. The youngest then asked," Bella, is something wrong??".

Then they heard a roar of," THAT BITCH DARES.", and then the Bellatrix Black grabbed the lamp on her table and chucked it across the room where it shattered into pieces. The other two Black sisters winced and were thankful that the lamp was not lighted or they would have a fire. The two of them used one of the shield spells from their family library, this one was a silent cast which could be cast soundlessly and is not easily noticeable. Perfect for stealthy encounters. Good thing they did it as Bellatrix proceeded to throw everything in her room everywhere. It was such a surprise for them as till now though Bellatrix was known for her temper she would never rage like this. The rage filled throwing marathon ended with Bellatrix, in a rare burst of uncontrolled magic lifted the entire bed and threw it against the wall. By this time the two younger witches were huddled in a corner of the room trying to make themselves as small a target as possible. They had never been a target of her sister, but everyone in the magical community loved to say that Blacks were more than a little touched in the head and they did not wish to test that theory right now.

Having calmed down a little after her outburst, Bellatrix looked around the destroyed room and then remembering about her sisters, started to look around. She noticed them huddled against the wall with their wands out and pointing at her. She grimaced sheepishly and said," It's okay. I am calm now.", and thought, 'No point in trying to pretend that did not happen. I was unaware that anger can get me like this. Guess I need more practice on my Occlumency.'.

Andromeda Black took a step forward gingerly and said," Bella, what happened?? That was so unlike you.". Bella sighed and waved her wand around to start the repair process of the room. It took a few seconds and once the room was repaired she sat down on the newly restored couch. Then she took a couple of seconds to calm herself down. She was still angry but it was not the raging anger that she had experienced a few moments before and she had calmed down enough. Andromeda and Narcissa, seeing that she had calmed down, sat down on either side of her and waited for her explanation. Once Bella was sure she would be able to speak without getting angry again she said," You both know that I had gone to the Diagon Alley after the Christmas to get some Hogwarts supplies for all of us. I had actually come across Dumbledore there.". Both Andromeda and Narcissa only raised their left eyebrows in response. "I agree, it is not strange to encounter him there, but I was surprised that he was leading a family of two muggleborns.". This time it was right eyebrow. They even did it in sync. Giggling a little at their antics she continued," That again is not so strange. What was strange is that the entire family looked like they had seen their fair share of bloodshed. And I am not talking about their grandparents only, I meant the two muggleborns themselves have killed people before. They might try to hide it but someone like us would easily recognize the unconscious way one looks at other people. Dumbledore was obviously charmed by their act since they were good enough but we are from the Black family, our family magic allows us to sense a dangerous individual when we encounter them. And I felt waves of it from the entire family, and a lot of it from the two younger ones.". This time both their eyebrows shot up, but before they could say anything she raised her hand to stop them and continued," I know what you want to say, that it is ridiculous, but I had gone back to research the feeling I got from the family books and what I found was that the magic is akin to a combination of many types of magic like Divination, Blood Magic and Dark arts etc. The magic itself was a very complex piece of most subtle and beautiful piece of magic that I have seen but it also answered some questions. The danger sense does not just take into account that someone in front of us has more magic or not. It also gives us a sense that the person may have other means to fight and those means could be dangerous to us. It also gives us an idea whether in a fight our opponent will instantly go for the kill or will he/she just wound. As a comparison, Dumbledore was the most dangerous since I got the sense that I simply cannot win again him, which is not surprising, but he would not try to kill me. But those kids would not hesitate to kill. Thus, their danger level was almost the same as Dumbledore.". The two younger witches were now concerned. Two eleven year olds that would not hesitate to kill was a frightening concept. Even for their family, which was told to be one of the darkest families does not have people who could kill without hesitation at that age. And these new dangerous individuals were arriving at Hogwarts next year.

Bellatrix then continued," At that time I did not know why I was getting the warnings about the kids, so I cast a Notice-me-not charm on myself and followed them. I anyway needed to go to Gringotts since I needed to get some money from my Vault. Having reached Gringotts I was surprised to notice the two kids getting a book on Gringotts rules and services.". Narcissa then replied," Well, that is not so surprising. Most muggleborns do not know about the rules of our world and they inadvertently break them. Nice to know that they atleast had the self-awareness to ask for it.". Bellatrix smirked at her and replied," And have you ever read the rules for Gringotts?? Better yet, tell me have you ever actually READ the rules for Hogwarts itself??". Narcissa and Andromeda both opened their mouths to say Yes, but then closed them remembering that all their knowledge of rules about both Hogwarts and Gringotts came from their family and they themselves had never actually read the rule book. Looking at their sheepish faces Bella giggled a little, embarassing your younger siblings never gets old. She then continued in a more serious tone," You now understand. We know the rules but have never actually read them. And you know how goblins are, they put too much importance on written contracts and would love to sneak some nonsense in between the lines. Did you know that goblins have very severe penalties for breaking rules even for the pureblood families?? I can tell you that the Blacks have broken atleast a few of the rules and the only reason we have not been penalized is because nobody knows about them. So I got a book for myself. The other surprising part was when those kids had also got a book for Gringotts services. To my knowledge I have never heard of anyone using Gringotts for anything other than storing valuables in a vault and managing their business. Every pureblood family manages their businesses through the bank. Yet I have never heard of any major services from Gringotts. Sure, some may come to claim their inheritance and get goblin made stuff but those are different. So it was surprising that they actually have a variety of services to offer. I was skeptical about it until I bought a book for myself. Having read the book cover to cover only gave me a new respect for how big of an enterprise Gringotts actually is. Did you know that every member of a magical family, pureblood or otherwise is entitled to a copy of the family book of ledgers?? You may not make any changes in it but you can still read it to know the condition of your family. The ledger is also not just a record of how much gold the family has or how many properties the family has. It is a book that records all transaction from the time the family first started to work with Gringotts. It even records the birth of any children of the family and all the various debts that are owed to and by the family, magical or otherwise.".

This was news to both the younger girls, as far as they knew, they had never seen the family ledger and they did not know if they would ever actually see it. But now here the ledger was being provided to them with the only condition being seventeen and over. Andromeda then said," But if that's the case one could lose the ledger and then all the secrets are out.". Bella then smiled a little at her and said," Give the goblins some credit. They blood bind each ledger copy to the person it was issued to. Nobody aside from the person it was intended for can ready them. And when a woman marries into another family, the ledger would burn down by itself. So no, the family secrets are quite safe I assure you. But anyway, I got the book from the goblins in January and had been going through the accounts. The person I am angry at is our dear mother. No I should stop calling her my mother. It is Drella that I am angry about. Apparently she had gone to Gringotts after a year or two after Cissy's birth, drunk on her feet to get gold out of her own trust vault. While there, in her drunken state, she got angry at a goblin that was taking her to her vault and tortured him with the Cruciatus curse. There was an alarm of an unforgivable having been used and goblins rushed to the location and saved the goblin from the curse. They penalized her by taking away her vault along with everything in it. They even sent a letter to the Black family head about the incident and asked for a punishment for Druella and sponsoring the medical fees for the goblin. They never got a reply.". Both the younger Black sisters were now horrified at what they were listening to. But the movie was still ongoing. Bella continued, this time in a sarcastic tone," Apparently, our grandfather's condition of not being lucid had started around that time. No doubt, she had a hand in it. The goblins, upon not being reimbursed and even ignored, decided to penalize the family. They took half of all the gold and valuables that they could find. This included gems, bones of different creatures, and even a phoenix egg.". Both Narcissa and Andromeda gasped at that. "Yeah, our family had a phoenix egg in our family vault. Having lost so much, Druella knew it would be only a matter of time before it was noticed. So she did what she should not have done. She approached the heads of Malfoys, Lestrange and Dolohovs, three rich upstart families and which had always wanted to get into the good graces of the Blacks. Well, richer compared to others anyway. She then got money in exchange for each of us. She sold me as the bride of Rodolphus Lestrange, Dromeda to Antonin Dolohov and Narcissa to Lucius Malfoy. She managed to recoup the amount she had lost with these three deals. If that was all, then I would only have gotten her kicked out of the family, but no, she went ahead and promised to them that each of us will be bound to our "Husbands" with the help of a lot of compulsion charms and loyalty rituals in case we do not want to marry them.".

The moment she said this, she jumped away from her couch. Good thing too since it was destroyed completely thanks to the blast of magic from both the Black sisters still sitting on it. They had a look of anger on their faces. To think their own mother had sold them out like they were a slave. Then Andromeda roared," IS THAT WHY THAT BASTARD LOOKS AT ME LIKE I AM A PRIZE HE ALREADY HAS?? HE KEEPS LOOKING AT ME LIKE HE IS PEELING MY CLOTHES OFF. I WILL KILL THAT BITCH THAT CALLS HERSELF MY MOTHER.". Before she could act on it though, she was grabbed by both Narcissa and Bellatrix. Both calmed her down and after fifteen minutes she had her anger in her control. Bellatrix however, was impressed by the control that Narcissa had on herself. She said," Cissy, you have good control over your emotions. I was not nearly as calm as you when I first came to know about it.". Narcissa for her part looked at both of her elder sisters and said," That is in part because I am the most calm among the three of us. You Bella, get angry easily and though you calm yourself, you still have a tendency to lash out at others nearby you. And Dromeda just has a lot of energy. You simply cannot sit in place for a long time and are easily excitable. Not to mention that I think Lucius is not a bad catch. He is handsome, smart and rich. He is also quite respectful of me and has not even tried to come close to any other girls while he has been trying to court me since our first year. He is also the only one, who despite me being the sister of you two, had the guts to approach me and talk normally. The others were either lusty pigs or nincompoops that wanted to get into the Black family graces or were simply scared away by the two of you." she completed with a slight blush on her face.

Andromeda and Bellatrix widened their eyes at their little sister. Narcissa huffed," Don't look at me like that. It is not like I had any other choice in boys. You know that us purebloods marry at a young age, most probably by the time we leave Hogwarts, there will be a number of bride contracts for us and our parents would have chosen one for us from them. I had actually expected our parents to marry us within a year or two after leaving Hogwarts. And I would rather marry someone of my choice. It just so happened that Lucius had been chosen for me by her. But yes, those contracts need to go. I will not become a slave to my husband.". But the older Black sisters were still in shock. "But Cissy,", began Andromeda," he is such a stuck up brat. He walks around as if he has a stick up his arse.". Narcissa giggled at that and shyly said," Don't you worry, I will cure him of his faults if it comes to that.". Each of them gave each other a conspiratorial smile not knowing somewhere their future (real) husbands felt a shiver run down their backs.

"Anyway, enough about that, Bella tell us what else you have found.", Andromeda said. Bella looked at them and said," I did a little digging around and found a lot of problematic things our mother has done. For one, she has always had some particular herbs in regular supply with her. I looked at them and though they are disguised as a simple beauty and cure potion on the surface, the ingredients can actually be used to concoct a bunch of loyalty potions. I believe that she has drugged everyone in our home from Grandfather to Aunt and Uncle and even Father. They all had been acting weird now that I know what to look for. They never questioned her on her decisions and I believe, Aunt Walburga being crazy is actually a side affect of her fighting the loyalty potions. She is unable to distinguish between right and wrong and thus she acts like a crazy woman most of the time. Another and most important part, our contracts, though paid, are not actually officially recognized as binding because only our grandfather, who is the head of the house can make it official. And to make it official, Grandfather must actually be able to do it without being impaired as being of sound in mind and body is crucial element of such contracts. So what we need to do is have all the loyalty potions flushed out of all of their systems. I am now an adult both magically and legally and as such according to the rule books of Gringotts, I have the power to reject decisions made for me that are not officiated by the Head of the house without repercussions. But I know that the moment I reject it, she is going to place me under compulsion charms and cart me off to the Lestranges. So we need to be subtle about it.".

Narcissa asked," So, what is your plan??", to which Bella replied," First I am going to apply to become and Auror. I need the training that they can give and the objects they will use. If I am to combat subtle magics I need to be able to do it properly. I am good enough that I can get into the recruits. It will be a few years of training from then on. It will also keep her off my case since I will have a genuine excuse of not being at the house due to my training duties. It will also keep her apprehensive about actually trying to influence me. Also, I will be able to try and get some dirt on all three of those families in case I ever need to use it against them.".

Narcissa and Andromeda looked at each other and seeing the look in each other's eyes they knew what the other was thinking. Under normal circumstance, there will be a lot of people who will not be able to sleep peacefully if Bellatrix was on their case. Now that she wanted to become an Auror, God help those that find themselves against her. They also prayed a little for their mother as well. Normal, laid back Bella was terrifying enough, and their mother just had lit a fire under her arse. No one knows what will happen to her now.

January - August 1969

The next couple of months went by very quickly and were very busy for Sam and Veronica. Once the holiday season had finished, the two of them went back to Diagon Alley discretely, to "finish their shopping". They went straight to Gringotts first where Sam asked to be brought to a private room since they wished to open a personal Vault. Once in the private room they were greeted by a goblin by the name of Wruik. They asked to be given an inheritance test first to see if they were eligible to inherit any of the older vaults. The test was a standard blood-drop-in-the-magical-cup process.

The results were a bit surprising. Each of them was apparently eligible for the inheritance of old houses of Oakwood and Elm respectively. The houses were not remarkable by any means. Their vault contained roughly about hundred thousand Galleons each and they each had a mansion to their name in England. The only reason they had so much in their vaults was because of the interest they got for the past thousand years. Apparently, no one from the families had even come back to claim or transact anything for the past thousand years and the family was all thought to have died out. However, they could instantly access their family vaults and take their roles as the heads of the family as the families did not have any rules of succession in place and thus they could simply take over the family. Had they been a family with rules of succession defined they would need to wait till they were seventeen to actually inherit everything.

They completed the formalities and as the heads of the family they tried to change their family names to Ambrose and Monroe. There was an issue in naming the house to Monroe as there was already a Noble house of Monroe so Veronica left it to Elm while Sam got the Ambrose family. Once that was done, they dumped all the gold, gems and most of the muggle currency they had on to the goblin and told him to split it evenly into the two vaults. Sam also gave him the account number and password for two anonymous account having a total of another hundred thousand galleons to be added to the Ambrose Vault. The goblin was overwhelmed by the amount of money that these two kids had with them, but then he got a greedy look on his face and told them he is willing to be their family manager if they want. As a family manager he will be the point of contact between them and Gringotts and would be able to facilitate any deals or requests they may have. Of course his services come at a cost. Seeing no issues, they allowed it. After being appointed as the manager, Wruik called upon other junior tellers and had them calculate the worth of everything that was in the room. There was about thirty million pounds in cash, about twenty kilos of gold in the form of bars, biscuits and jewelry, a lot of diamonds and about ten million pounds in British Bonds. After converting the total and taking a small conversion fee for the gold and the cash, twelve million galleons for cash and ten million galleons for the gold. For the gems Wruik suggested to keep them as it is in the vaults and if required they can be directly used as hard currency for expensive transactions. Thus the two vaults were now richer by eleven million galleons each. Since they had crossed the ten million mark and had a house to their name, they were now eligible for a number of discounts and also would be provided a family ledger blood bonded to them for free and all of their transactions will be kept fully secret. They could also customize their Lord ring with the help of goblin enchanters to get additional benefits on it.

They asked for all the different enchantments that can be put on the ring and were given another booklet. In the end they chose a simple looking platinum ring each and spent another million galleons on it to upgrade it to the highest level. The ring would have the functions to tell if what they are drinking or eating had been spiked with any potion, they will be told of any and all Legilimency attempts, will protect them from memory spells, had a built in function to see in the dark, had several protection enchantments that protected from a lot of hexes, jinxes, curses and blood curses and a number of revealing charms that would reveal the presence of anyone around them. It will act as a permanent reusable portkey to their mansions and the most expensive spell of all, the ring was the object to which a Fidelius spell was attached allowing for everything in the family ledger was to be kept under secret and enforced by Fidelius Charm.

Satisfied by their purchase, the next few days Sam and Veronica spent on visiting their new mansions and then again spent another million galleons to upgrade the mansions and their wards. The mansions and the surrounding lands were not anything special or big. They were about the size of an average farmland with the building itself having around twenty rooms. For a family those twenty rooms would fill up fast but since it was just two of them for now it seemed big. They spent another million galleons and hired Gringotts to upgrade the mansion and the wards around them. They renovated several rooms to become potion lab, smithing lab, an enchanting lab, an indoor gym, a greenhouse in the fields, a stable, an owlery and even added a swimming pool that gave out water at desired temperature. Aside from these they had dueling rooms made to weapon rooms. The wards were the most expensive ones, they had a number of protective and warning wards with anti apparition and unplottable on top. After that they added several muggle repelling and invisibility wards. They spent another five hundred thousand galleons to get the entire property under Fidelius Charm. At the end of it, the two mansions had all the security that they needed and then some for now. They could now practice magic safely and without fear of getting caught by the Trace. They then placed an order for any house elves that could be bought.

While they were waiting for the house-elf agency to get an house elf, Sam added a complete gunsmith workshop, in the basement of course, complete with a shooting range and tried to test fire some guns. Tried being the key word here. The gun literally exploded in his hand and if it was not for the fact that he was wearing his Head of House ring his hand would be gone. After trying again with some other guns and getting the same result, they figured out why magical world was so backward as compared to muggle world. No muggle appliance worked properly. The only ones that worked were mechanical in nature and as soon as some more modern concept is applied it simply stops working.

After trying to replicate the same thing with other weapons and electrical appliance, this time with their sensing magics on full blast they came to know of a rudimentary thing they had overlooked. That was the Wards themselves. The wards of any magical place would react differently with different muggle appliance. For example, the gun works on the principle that there is an explosion in the barrel that propels the bullet. Now there are protection wards around that would recognize that explosion as something that was not done by the owner's magic and thus harmful/dangerous and will try to stop.mitigate the effect. On the other hand, the intent based ward will recognize it as something that was intended by the owner and will work based on what the owner's intentions are at that point. The other wards will also react at the same time thus the muggle technology will act crazy in the magical world, since almost every place is warded properly. They cannot keep a place on their grounds where Wards do not encompass since it will create a hole in their defenses. Thus, they will need to test and create various other things before they can make their weapons work in the magical world.

On the other hand, their magical training kicked off perfectly. They placed an order, with Gringotts as intermediary, for all the books of the seven years of Hogwarts and started to practice. Sam worked on Runes while Veronica worked on potions with both of them getting a lot of initial success. By the time the August arrived, Veronica had finished the potions course upto the second year, while Sam had completely completed the Runes theoretical knowledge upto fifth year.

They also practiced the various spells in the books and ordered some dueling books and books on useful spells and tried them all on. They were easily able to use all the spells till the fourth year, though they had problems with some. They also practiced basic dueling. Nothing too serious, just spells like minor hexes and jinxes that had a timeout for their effects were used and practiced. They had a lot of interest towards transfiguration and charms and tried to perfect and master almost any spell that they could perform.

They were able to buy two house-elves, one for each. Taldey, a male elf for Sam and Ceemy, a female elf for Veronica. They were ordered to keep the houses and the grounds clean and upto date and were also asked to go watch some people from the muggle world to learn from about dressing up and being a proper butler or maid to the house. They each were paid 1 galleon a month for any expenses they may have. Sam and Veronica actually wanted to give more but the house elves were already ready to give them their lives after just one galleon. They did not know what they will do if they actually gave them ten. They were basically slaves and though both Sam and Veronica were not comfortable with it, they atleast understood it as the necessity of house-elves, since they need to bond with both a wizard and a home to be able to live. Also, they make excellent helpers so there's that.

Both of them had plans to train the elves to become atleast a good housekeeper, that could maintain and most importantly protect their houses. And if need be also attack others. With all these matters completed they eagerly waited for the Hogwarts journey to start.

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