In Name Only

Chapter Two

Grimmauld Place

Harry hadn't been sure what to expect when he nearly fell out of the fireplace of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. The sight that greeted him, however, was one he would probably always remember. His friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were there along with Ron's mum, and Sirius. Mrs. Weasley rushed over to him and enveloped him in a hug. It was awkward, but Harry hugged her back. She was the closest thing he had ever had to a mother and he loved her. She was definitely one he considered family.

"Where's Rebecca?" Sirius asked.

"I think Lucius Malfoy showed up right before she told me to go," Harry answered, unsure of Sirius' reasoning. The man had spent most of the last half hour being hateful to the woman he'd called sister, and now he was almost concerned for her? It didn't make sense. Harry hadn't spent much time around his godfather and didn't know if this was normal or not.

"Someone will get killed," Sirius said. "I can't guarantee it will be Rebecca either."

"Sirius Black!" Mrs. Weasley admonished, but Sirius didn't look at all concerned about what he'd said. He once again looked thoughtful. "At least show a little concern. She is your sister."

"In name only," Sirius replied darkly. "Nothing else. Never anything else. She was my mother's prize child. It was sickening. If she had been born into this family we probably would have killed each other when we were children."

Mrs. Weasley sighed like Harry had heard her do so many times over her twin sons, Fred and George. "Ron, Hermione, take Harry upstairs. Sirius perhaps you would change his trunk, as well. I will wait for the call from Dumbledore."

Harry followed Ron, Hermione, and Sirius out of the basement kitchen and up the stairs. When they reached the first floor, the door opened and Rebecca walked in. This time she actually looked like she had been in a duel. Her braided hair was pulled down and there was a cut in the arm of her green silk shirt. Harry could see the angry remnants of a long cut down her arm that disappeared under her shirt.

"Was Lucy not happy to see you?" Sirius asked.

"Your penchant for understatement never ceases to amaze the masses, Sirius. Not that it is any of your business what happens between Lucius and I. Dumbledore and the others will be here soon. The Aurors were arriving when I left and they weren't happy."

"Did you kill Malfoy?" Ron asked.

Rebecca looked at him. "You are far too young to need to know about what I do or who I may or may not kill."

"Really?" Sirius asked. "And how old were you when you began to kill?"

"I think you know the answer to that question and regardless of what you may think, I have no wish to turn these children into killers any sooner than need be. Now go off and do whatever it is that you do, Sirius. Some of us do have a job to do here."

Harry looked at Sirius and he could see the rage burning in the man's eyes. Harry wanted to say something to diffuse the situation but he had a feeling it would only make things worse. He wondered why, if she was Sirius' sister, she would provoke him. She didn't seem to care in the slightest what he said about her and since Harry had first seen her, she had always been calm. Even when she had fought with the Death Eaters she'd been so calm it seemed unnatural.

"Yes," Sirius answered. "You have to go off and tell Voldemort what is happening here."

"I suppose the Slytherin creed was right then; Gryffindors have no sense. If you did have any sense, you would know very well what would happen if I showed my face in London."

"Sirius, don't move. Rebecca, quit antagonizing him. I have no desire to keep you from killing each other should this continue."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned to see their former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin, walk into the room. He looked less ragged than when Harry had last seen him. His clothes didn't look as old and seemed to be in much better shape than they had been before. He also seemed healthier and better nourished. Harry wondered when the next full moon was.

"Remus, how can you support her?" Sirius asked.

"I don't, but I also don't think that now is a good time to provoke her considering what she just did to Malfoy. Rebecca, Dumbledore wants to see you at Hogwarts. He says it is important."

"Everything is important with him," Rebecca said, "but no matter. There is something I wish to discuss with him as well."

"Are you deliberately trying to anger her, Sirius?" Lupin asked once Rebecca had left the room to go down to the basement kitchen. Sirius didn't look at all ashamed about the things he'd said to her. Instead, he shrugged.

"I spent many years around her, Remus. I know what she can be like."

"She has changed," Lupin said. "Not much, but at least now she has some semblance of a conscious. Becoming a parent can do that even to the worst people."

"Not to Rebecca. She never had a conscious. If she did she wouldn't have done half the things she did. She would never have joined Voldemort. You three go upstairs," Sirius said over his shoulder to the three teens. "I'll be up there in a minute to fix your trunk, Harry."

Harry didn't want to leave the conversation but Ron and Hermione were pulling him out of the room and onto the stairs. He followed them into a bedroom and Hermione closed the door.

"What is going on?" Harry asked.

"The war has started," Ron said. "You-Know-Who openly declared war on the Ministry of Magic this morning."

"Why hasn't anyone told me anything about this?" Harry demanded. He hated being left in the dark about things and this was important. Anything involving Voldemort was important because Voldemort would keep trying to kill him.

"Dumbledore didn't want you to do anything rash and he wouldn't let us send any letters, Harry, I'm sorry," Hermione said. "We wanted to tell you, but we weren't allowed. Only Fawkes delivers any letters in or out of here and those are only to Remus, Sirius, or Rebecca. We're not even allowed to let the owls out."

"So, what, you've been staying here since the end of term?"

"We only just moved in last week," Ron said. "This is Sirius' family's ancestral home. He gave it to Dumbledore to use as the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix."

"The what?"

"It's Dumbledore's defense against Voldemort," Hermione explained. "Those people who will stand by him and help to defend those under his care and to fight with him when this war comes to that. We're not allowed in on the meetings, but we think something big is about to happen. That woman, Rebecca, has been around here a lot but we've been told to stay away from her and Snape when they're here. They are always in the library or in the basement working but they argue a lot and sometimes we can hear what they're saying."

"Who is she?" Harry wanted to know. The question had been nagging him since he'd seen her. She was familiar to him but not enough for him to know who she was and Sirius had called her sister.

"We're not sure. No one will give us an answer, but Remus said she had been a Death Eater in the last war. She and Sirius argue all the time and her last name is Black so I think they're related."

Hermione's explanation made sense, but Harry didn't think it was right. There was something else about Rebecca. Even if she was related to Sirius, his true sister, why didn't he accept her now? Harry sat down on the bed while Ron and Hermione explained what had happened to them during the past month. He continued to think about the events on Privet Drive. Rebecca had known when and how the Death Eaters would attack so it made sense that she was or had been a Death Eater. Harry thought about Sirius' reactions about Death Eaters. Some of his comments began to make more sense. If Rebecca was his sister and had been a Death Eater Sirius would probably feel anger and resentment towards her but if she had repented her ways, would Sirius still hate her because of her past choices? Harry didn't know his godfather well and he wasn't sure what Sirius' reaction would be otherwise.

Harry only half listened to the stories Ron and Hermione told him. He was still very curious about what was going on downstairs between Sirius and Lupin and when the bedroom door opened revealing a still angry Sirius, Harry turned his attention to his godfather.

"What is going on?"

"Ron, Hermione, can you leave us for a while? I'd like to talk to my godson alone." The two other teens nodded and Hermione smiled at Harry before pushing Ron out of the room. Sirius sat down next to Harry on the bed.

"I guess you're confused," Sirius began. "Huh, I don't know where to begin. What do you want to know?"

"Rebecca. Who is she?"

"You couldn't start with an easy one, could you? Rebecca was unofficially adopted by my parents when she was sixteen. She had become a Death Eater that summer and had taken one of my cousins with her to Voldemort under Lucius Malfoy's guidance. She is not to be trusted. Dumbledore trusts her and he knows as well as I do what she is capable of. Don't trust her, Harry. There is nothing to say she isn't still Voldemort's favourite."

~~~

"Who's this?" Jonas Davids asked his partner when they came upon the body of a man in Death Eater robes. His mask was gone and his face covered in blood.

"Bloody 'ell, it looks like Lucius Malfoy."

"Huh, so much for his pretty face now. Whoever did this had fun." Malfoy's face looked like a ghastly version of Frankenstein's monster. Ugly red welts covered the areas where deep gashes had begun to heal themselves before Malfoy apparently lost consciousness.

"I can't get a signature from the spells," the second man replied. "They can get him patched up at the Ministry. Let's get him loaded up with the rest and get outta here. Place is creepy."

"It's only a Muggle neighborhood," Jonas replied. He glanced again at Malfoy. He had a feeling he knew who was responsible for the Death Eater's current predicament and it wasn't an Auror.

"My point, Davids."

Jonas looked around. He thought he'd heard something but his current partner's paranoia had to be getting to him. The Muggles had been cleared out of the area already in preparation for clearing out the captured Death Eaters. Several had been left by Dumbledore and those who'd helped him and Jonas had been sent in by Kinglsey Shacklebolt to secure the outer perimeters.

Jonas ran a hand through his brown hair. He wondered how the Minister was going to try to cover this up. Since the conclusion of the Tri-Wizard Tournament in June, random attacks and other acts of violence had been reported to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Things were getting bad quick but the Minister of Magic Fudge refused to admit the possibility that You-Know-Who was back. Rather he insisted Dumbledore was trying to create a rebellion against the Ministry itself. Jonas doubted that highly. He had worked with Dumbledore in the past near the end of the first war against the Dark Lord. He knew Dumbledore wouldn't lie about something like that and the fact that Harry Potter had been attacked only served to prove Dumbledore right.

"Hey Davids, lookit this," his partner, Lucas Wolf called out. "I think we might be able to figure out who did this."

Jonas walked over to the front door of the house.

"Imperio." Jonas saw the curse and dodged it. He'd had suspicions of his partner's loyalty and this only proved him right. He wanted to laugh. He had a reputation within DMLE for not being able to keep a partner for more than a few months at a time. Wolf had only last two.

"Crucio!" Wolf yelled again, this time with more feeling.

"Oh, come on, Wolf, can't you be original for once? I don't have the time for Unforgivables. How about this: Suntinella!" When Wolf fell to the ground bleeding, Jonas stunned him before clotting the wounds. He should have recognized the signs. He had seen them often enough in the last war.

Jonas sighed and looked at Wolf. He ran the spell to test for Imperious Curse and wasn't surprised that the man was not under it. He lifted the left shirt sleeve and upon finding the Dark Mark marring the skin he sent up the signal to the other Aurors in the area. He had just found their first Ministry Death Eater. He knew there would be many more to come and there were probably a few to be found in this neighborhood. Most of them would have escaped if able when Aurors started to arrive.

"What've you got, Jonas?"

"Wolf here and Lucius Malfoy over there with a scarred face," he answered the senior Auror.

"Huh. We're pretty much done here. Head back and start filing your report. You know, Jonas, I might as well leave you partnerless. Every time I give you one something happens to them."

Jonas shrugged but smiled. "Reminds me of someone I used to know." With a last look at Wolf, Jonas Disapparated. When he got to the Ministry, he went straight to his cubicle at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He wanted to get started on filing his report about Wolf so he would have time to meet with his former classmate before she disappeared again. Unlike Wolf, he had known exactly who was responsible for Malfoy's now permanent scars. He knew of only one person with that much hatred against the Death Eater and that was Rebecca Black. He knew he shouldn't have been surprised at her return, but he had been told she was dead.

Rebecca had contacted him the day before and wanted to meet in Muggle London which surprised him. He had gone to school with Rebecca and had known her before she'd been taken under the wing of the Blacks and Malfoys. It had been Rebecca's father who had gotten Jonas into the Auror training program after he'd left Hogwarts. He had watched as Rebecca constantly hurt her family through her actions and part of him had hated her for it. He had been in Slytherin with her and had been a part of the Pureblood Order, but once things had changed, so had he. When he got the owl from Rebecca asking to meet, he had been wary. She was not a person to anger even on the best of terms which had made her a powerful Death Eater and ally to Voldemort. If she was allying herself with the Light this time, with her knowledge of Voldemort and Death Eaters, she would become an important member of the fight.

Jonas wasn't sure which Rebecca would be, but he hoped the latter.

~~~

"Ah, Rebecca, I'm glad you were able to come," Dumbledore said. "I trust everything is well at the manor."

"Sirius and Harry got there well enough," she answered, sitting down.

"And you dueled Lucius."

Rebecca shrugged. "It was bound to happen and it will happen again. He won't be too happy when he regains consciousness."

"Indeed," Dumbledore said. "I am surprised you felt the need to be so cruel to the Death Eaters we battled today. Do you seem to think that this was needed?"

Rebecca wanted to yell at him. He had no right to judge her now after she'd given so much to his precious Order of the Phoenix. If it hadn't been for her, many Death Eaters would still be alive...but then again if it hadn't been for her, many innocents would still be alive as well. She could give Dumbledore all her knowledge about the Dark Lord but it would never be enough to atone for the deaths she had caused and the children she had murdered or orphaned. Death had become a part of her life at a young age. She admitted she'd allowed herself to be led astray by Lucius Malfoy, but none of those things allowed Dumbledore to judge her.

"I don't answer to you, Dumbledore," she said after a long while. "I have become my own person. As for what I did today, I only showed them I am not dead and I am ready to battle with any of them. Those I trained will remember my lessons and try to turn them upon me. I do not regret torturing Death Eaters and I never will. They deserve what they get."

"That was not an opinion you held fifteen years ago."

"And I was far away from here fifteen years ago and away from my daughter. At the same time, I was also the Dark Lord's most trusted advisor and extractor. I regret the things I did and I regret most of the murders I committed, but I will not regret what I do now, nor what I did just an hour ago."

The two sat in silence for several minutes. Without warning, Dumbledore stood up and smiled. "I know all I need to know, Rebecca. I want you here to teach this term. I have yet to find anyone to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts and I think you will be able to provide a unique perspective to the students while training them for the coming war."

"I can't teach, Dumbledore," Rebecca said, standing as well. "Besides, I would better serve the Order's efforts if I were training the members in battle tactics."

"The students need you more. Alastor, Sirius, and Remus can train the Order with Kingsley and Tonks. I also have other reasons for wanting you here this term, child. I think you will be needed by your godson."

"He doesn't even know me."

"He does. He has been told of you by his godfather and I think you will be the best person to help him."

"Teach your students, save my godson from Voldemort, what else, Dumbledore? I know you want something else so don't try to deny it."

Dumbledore reached across his desk and picked up a book. "When I went to Little Hangleton to confirm Harry's story of Voldemort's resurrection in the graveyard, I found this inside the house. I do not know what language it is written in and therefore cannot translate it, but I think you can." He passed the diary to her and when she opened it she fell back into her seat.

"Merlin, Dumbledore." She sighed. "Hell, fine. I'll do this."

Dumbledore clapped his hands together. "Perfect. I'll send house elves to get your things from your apartment and you can move in here whenever you like. If you wish, you can stay at Grimmauld Place until the term starts and travel back with the students for additional protection on the train."

"Indeed," Rebecca said with a dry tone eyeing the book in her hands with contempt. She didn't care what the headmaster had in mind. This book would prove to be very interesting if it held the information she thought it would. "Indeed."

"Can you translate it?"

"It appears as English to me, you know this. Do you want me to read it to you?"

"When was it written?"

Rebecca paused and flipped to the front cover of the book. "In his seventh year, right before he killed his family."

"Do you take note of anything interesting or of use there?"

She flipped through the book again, noting several things of interest to her and other Death Eaters but little that would interest the headmaster, except one entry.

An idea began to form in her mind. She needed to get back to Grimmauld Place to know for sure, but it was possible. She looked up at Dumbledore. "No, nothing really that I can see now. There might be something else I can't see until I translate the entire book."

"This, I think, may be important later. I would ask you to translate it for me. I want to know what he was thinking of the time."

Rebecca nodded, but her mind was elsewhere. She'd give Dumbledore a translation, but not the one he wanted. She had a feeling she knew exactly what was in the diary and she wanted to know those things for herself and for the final battle. She soon left the headmaster to his own devices and returned to Grimmauld Place. Many hours in the library and sleepless night awaited her.

~~~

Jonas waited for Rebecca in the park she had specified in London. It was located on Grimmauld Place, the reputed location of Black Manor. He figured he shouldn't have been surprised, if she was still using the name Black she would go to the one place she knew would welcome her.

"Hello, Jonas."

He whirled around. Rebecca stood near a bench. She hadn't changed much since the last time he'd seen her at a battle between Aurors and Death Eaters of which he and Rebecca had been leading, respectively. Her black hair was longer now, flowing down her back and her almost black eyes were gleaming in the dusk.

"Rebecca," he said, fingering his wand in its holster on his wrist. He didn't know what she was planning but he didn't' want to take any chances.

"Paranoid as always," she said, sitting on the bench. "Something you no doubt learned from my father."

"I'm not sure you can be trusted."

"Everyone except Dumbledore seems to be of that opinion about me as of late. It is no surprise really."

"You did it to yourself."

Rebecca shrugged. Jonas was reminded of the conversations she had led in the Pureblood Order. She had always been cold and he had never understood why. Her family had been well known and loved among the masses and throughout the generations, most had gone into the Ministry and the Aurors. Except Rebecca. After leaving school she had all but disappeared from public life. Sightings of her came in through DMLE but it was always in Death Eater attacks. After four years, the reports were that she was Voldemort's most trusted servant. She'd had her daughter by that point and her younger brother was in his last year at Hogwarts. Jonas had been out of training and his first undercover assignment had been to find her and get close to her, but Rebecca had never been a person to let herself be fooled by anyone.

He had been surprised she didn't kill him. By all rights she could have but she didn't and he owed her his life so he would hear her out this time.

"You owe me, Jonas, and I'm calling in the favour now."

"I'm not agreeing to anything until I know what it is."

"This is for the good of the war effort, Jonas, and I know you care about that. I know Kingsley and Tonks will help you with this once they have what I'm about to give you."

"What is it?"

"You know I left London months before James and Lily Potter were killed. Today I retrieved something from Lucius' mind that will prove the truth of a matter we all thought we knew the truth of." She pulled a vial from her robe pocket. "This is the memory I retrieved. Don't ask how, I won't taint your view of right and wrong, but I trust you."

"Why?"

"You had the chance to kill me many times already, Jonas, yet you haven't. I know you will do what is best for all involved. Use the memory to our advantage."

"Who is it about?"

"A traitor. You have many enemies within the Ministry so keep this within DMLE."

Jonas was quiet for several long seconds. Rebecca still held the memory vial in her outstretched hand. If he took it, did it mean he would help her? Did it mean she was willing to fight for the Ministry? He didn't know, but there was something about the sheer emotion behind her words that drove him to believe her.

Jonas reached out and took the vial from Rebecca. Her hand fell limply to her side. "Do what I ask, Jonas, and your debt will be paid in full and I will ask you for no more."

"If this is true..."

"Do what is right. It's not the Slytherin thing to do, but this time that does not matter. I owe it to my family to do this. Do what you can and I will be grateful. Goodbye, Jonas. Perhaps we shall meet again." She turned and Disapparated mid step.