Redemption For A Monster (Marauder fanfic) Book Three

66- Cassiopeia's Rebellion

Over the next few weeks Sara had nothing to do to pass the time, since she knew that leaving the safety of her father's home was not a good idea, so soon after Voldemort had taken control of the Ministry.
In all the commotion that had taken place after Bill and Fleur's wedding, Sara had completely forgotten about the gift Dumbledore had left her in his will. That was until she found it hidden in a drawer, a month later.
She picked up the book, and immediately gave herself a papercut as she turned the first page.
After swearing loudly, Sara turned the next page, but as a blood drop from her finger touched the page, the book absorbed it, revealing a hand written message from Dumbledore inside.

'My dear Sara, I hope that you find the notes I have made throughout this book, as they will help you to discover who you truley are. I decided to hide my notes, in case someone from the Ministry tries to look through it. There are a lot of names in this, so hopefully they will not find yours.
I also hope that you can forgive me for looking into your family history, without your knowledge or consent.
I felt that you deserved to know where you came from, but even I was not certain that the proof of your birth existed, until I found this book.
As far as I know, this magical book is unique in the world, for it uses magic to update its own family trees, at the birth of every baby in one of the Sacred 28 Pure-blood families.
But no matter what you find, do not let the knowledge in the book change who you are.
Albus Dumbledore'.

Sara had no idea how Dumbledore had managed to hide his notes in the book, using Sara's blood to unlock them. But she knew that Dumbledore did a lot of things that she believed were impossible.
Intrieged about what Dumbledore could have possibly found out about her past, Sara began to flick through the book, until she found more of Dumbledore's handwritten notes in the page margins.
There was a large circle around one particular branch on a family tree, with the name Lestrange.
Sara recognised the name Lestrange of course, since Bellatrix Lestrange had murdered Sirius. But in truth, Bellatrix had been born a Black, and only married into the Lestrange family.
Sara knew Bellatrix's husband was called Rodolphus, and he had a brother named Rabastan. And they were both Death Eaters, but that was all Sara knew about them.

Sara began to follow Dumbledore's writting, down the Lestrange family tree.
She stopped at a name that he had underlined, which was a woman by the name of Cassiopeia Lestrange.
The woman had apparently married a Muggle man by the name Benedict Burne.
Sara froze, and reread the Muggle's surname, to make sure that she hadn't misread it.
But there was no mistaking that she shared the same surname as this Muggle.
Next to Cassiopeia's name, Dumbledore had written that she had been disinherited by her Pure-blood family for marrying a Muggle. And that the pair had moved to Sweden to escape persecution from her family.

Upon seeing the word Sweden, Sara began putting the pieces together in her head. The dragon she turned into was a Swedish Short-Snout afterall.
She then looked down at the line below Cassiopeia and Benedict. They'd had one child together, who they had named Celia Burne. Sara's grandmother.
Dumbledore had written Beauxbaton beside Celia's name, indicating where she had gone to school. Which explained why Ollivander hadn't recognised the surname Burne when Sara went to get her wand, because Celia had gone to Beauxbaton, and obviously got her wand from a Swedish wand maker.
Celia had never married, but there was a name connecting her to the line below her.
A Swedish wizard by the name Elias Lindström, connected Celia to her daughter Natasha Burne- Sara's mother.
Sara had never seen the man's name before, as her mother had never known her own father, since Celia had never mentioned his name to her daughter.

Although Sara knew what came next, she carried on reading.
Dumbledore had written that Celia had come to Britain after being Cursed by Elias, and getting pregnant by him.
Sara looked down and saw her fathers name beside her mother's, and a single line between them heading downwards, stopping at Sara's own name.
She couldn't believe that it was true. But as she looked down at her own name on the Lestrange family tree, she couldn't think of any other reason it would be on there, if she was not a descendent of the Lestrange's.
Dumbledore clearly believed that what the book said was true, otherwise he would not have left it to Sara.

Leo Fawley, a proud Pure-blood, had unknowingly fallen in love with the descendent of another Pure-blood line, the Lestranges.
Sara knew that her father had an extensive library, that included many books on the Sacred 28 Pure-blood families. So she raised her wand and Summoned one of the books to her.
When the book arrived, Sara began flicking through it until she found the pages on the Lestrange family.
She eventually found Cassiopeia's name, but according to that book, she had died in the same year that Dumbledore's book claimed she had married Benedict Burne.
This seemed to confirm the story that Dumbledore had written into the margins, in Sara's mind.
Cassiopeia had defied her family by marrying a Muggle, much like Tonks's mother Andromeda had done by marrying the Muggle-born Ted Tonks, and both women had been cut off by their families.
The Lestrange's had even gone as far to tell the world that their daughter had died, rather than admit that she had married a Muggle.

After checking several other Pure-blood books in her father's library, Sara realised that they all said the same thing, claiming that Cassiopeia had died.
Cassiopeia had even been removed completely from some of them, like Sirius and Andromeda had been from the Black family tree in Grimmauld Place. And those that she was in, claimed that she had died of a mysterious illness in her early 20's.
Only Dumbledore's book told a different story, as it wasn't written by one person, it relied on magic. It knew who belonged to which family, in the same way that the magical Hogwarts list, knew of all the magical children who had been born in Britain, so that the Deputy of the school could send them their Hogwarts letter.

The 28 Sacred Family Trees, was so up to date that it had John's name on, marking Sara and Remus as his parents.
Next to Remus was another line, linking him and Tonks by marriage. Below them was another line, however this one had no name under it, which Sara assumed was because Remus and Tonks' child hadn't been born yet.
Although Sara didn't want to think of herself as a Lestrange, since she knew that the family had a bad history, she couldn't deny the truth that was sitting right in front of her, and staring her in the face.

With this new truth about her past, Sara suddenly remembered something that the Sorting Hat had said to her, during the Sorting ceremony in her first year at Hogwarts.
"Hmm. Very interesting. The blood says Slytherin, but the mind says Ravenclaw. However the heart says something completely different... So it had better be Gryffindor!".
She had wanted to be placed in Ravenclaw like her substitute grandmother Tabitha Twitch, who had helped raise her.
And at the time she had assumed that the bit about her blood being Slytherin, was about her father, who she knew nothing about.

However, after meeting her father as an adult, he had told her that his whole family had been placed in Gryffindor for generations.
And now Sara knew that even though the Lestrange blood was far back in her history, the Sorting Hat could sense it in her, which is why it had considered placing her in Slytherin. The house of all the dark witches and wizards, and the house for Pure-blood families, like the Lestranges.

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In case you were wondering, no, Cassiopeia is not a real Lestrange, as far as I am aware. She is a character that I created.