Inspired by a number of comments on SB about Iris clearly being inclined towards stealing the Philosopher's Stone in "No Route Back".

Clearly she was destined for a life of crime, even if she didn't know it.

The Black Family Business

Iris yawned as she stumbled down the stairs of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. There were a number of voices chatting away in the kitchen, and noise had awoken her from the glorious 16 hours of sleep she needed every once in awhile during her summer holidays.

"Iris!" A familiar voice called out.

"Rin?" Iris mumbled sleepily. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be back in Japan?"

"Not when there's work to be done." Rin replied smartly. "We've all been waiting for you to be ready though."

Rin placed a hand on the small of her back and began to guide her towards the kitchen.

"Oh!" She said before the entrance. "We can't have you attending the meeting like that."

With a wave of her wand, Rin transfigured Iris's pajamas into a smart black tuxedo. Another wave brought her hair back into a tight ponytail.

"What?" Iris said in sleepy panic as she looked down at herself.

Rin ignored her question and steered her the rest of the way into the kitchen.

Iris forced herself to a stop as she stepped in and found Hermione, Shirou, Neville, Tonks, Sirius, and Luna all sitting or standing around the dining table, all dressed in smart black suits or dresses according to their gender or preference.

Luna's was pink.

Shirou probably would have looked better had he not also been wearing a pink, frilly apron that said "Kiss the Cook Bodyguard" on it.

The room went silent and everyone stood at attention as she entered.

"What's going on?" Iris asked.

"Quite a lot." Hermione answered, pulling out a large binder and slamming it down onto the table. "The Tri-Wizard Tournament really opened up international borders to The Family, and the Weasley Twins filing to open a legitimate shop has created a lot of opportunities for us."

She pulled out a narrow book that gloriously displayed the title How to Launder Money and began to page through it, nodding to herself.

"What?" Iris asked.

"Don't jump on her so quickly." Rin chided. "She needs a bit of pep to get her going during summer holidays."

She smirked at Iris, who could only stare blankly around the room.

"Kreacher!" She called out. "Coffee!"

"Yes, Miss Tohsaka!" Kreacher said meekly as he popped into the room with a two cups of steaming coffee. "Two cups of coffee, Black style" He handed the cups to Iris and Rin.

"Very good, Kreacher." Rin said.

"Thank you for the praise, Miss Tohsaka." Kreacher bowed and then popped away.

"What did you do to that elf?" Sirius asked, as he stared at the space the elf had been occupying.

"Taught it some manners." Rin said with a smile.

Sirius opened his mouth, closed his mouth, opened it again, then looked away.

"This is why you're the head of enforcement." He muttered.

Iris raised the coffee cup to her lips before thinking about what Kreacher had said and stopping.

"What exactly is 'Black style'?" She asked.

"According to Kreacher," Rin said, "it is the traditional Black Family way of making coffee. The beans are grown on land where the family has buried the bodies of their foes. The beans are ground using a mortar and pedestal made of the hip bone and femur of a slain enemy. During brewing, the coffee is aerated with the magically captured lamentations of the women left behind by said enemy's defeat. No sugar, no milk, though you can add some salt in the form of children's' tears to taste." Rin took a sip from her cup. "It's the Genghis Khan of coffees."

Iris stared at her for a moment before bringing her own cup back to her lips and taking a small sip.

She immediately perked up as the taste and sensation of the coffee filtered through her body.

She stared down at the cup in her hands. It wasn't the normal way that she perked up from caffeine.

"Why does it taste..." She liked her lips and tried to think of a way to phrase her question. "Why does it taste sexy?"

"Oh." Rin gave her a bit of a predatory grin and leaned close to whisper in her ear. "Kreacher told me that we were all out of fresh lamentations. So, before Fleur went back to France, I captured some of her moans and screams as I drove her beneath me." Rin winked.

Iris stared at her, then down at her cup before taking a slow, long sip.

She'd never really been a coffee person before.

She was now a coffee person.

"So," she said, a little more awake now, "what's all this?"

"As Hermione mentioned..." Rin started speaking as she guided Iris to sit at the head of the table. Everyone else followed suit once she was sitting, except Shirou, who was bringing plates of food around to everyone. "We've managed to make use of the Tournament last year to expand our criminal empire outside of Britain, so we've gathered the family heads together to discuss the situation."

"Rin..." Iris spoke slowly, beginning to wonder if this was some kind of super realistic dream. "We don't have a criminal empire."

"Of course we don't." Rin rolled her eyes. "We're just a group of people who disregard most of the laws in this country and sometimes feed people we don't like to our pet dragons."

"That was ONE TIME!" Iris said hotly.

God, you feed one defense professor to a dragon, and suddenly everyone is accusing you of extorting good grades from the rest of the faculty.

"Oh." Rin's eyes opened with understanding. "Is this because of Tonks? Don't worry about talking about crimes in front of her."

"Right'o, Boss." Tonks spoke up from her spot at the table. "Even if you all weren't paying me off, I'm still behind the cause."

"We're paying you off?" Iris asked incredulously.

"Of course not." Tonks winked at her. "I just get a bit of a stipend from the Black family because I'm a member of the branch family. All very legal and above board. And an Auror can't really be blamed for talking about work related topics with her family now, can she?"

"Back on topic though." Hermione spoke up from behind a thick book called: International Business. "Our finances are down due to the expansion, but that's to be expected. Our branches in Bulgaria and France are expanding rapidly though and should be in the black shortly."

"Viktor has been working quite hard." Rin spoke up teasingly. "I wonder what we could send to reward him."

Hermione blushed and lifted her business book up to cover her face, causing the magazine that had been open inside of it to fall out.

Before Hermione could react, Rin had her wand out and summoned the magazine across the table.

"Bulgarian Quidditch Stars: Swimsuit Edition." Rin read off as she eyed the cover image of a well oiled Viktor Krum wearing what could be generously labeled as a speedo, and would probably be better off with the label like "scrap fabric" or "modesty strip".

"Neville..." Iris turned to her fellow Gryffindor in hopes of a straight answer. "What's happening?"

"Boss!" The young man sat up straight in his chair. "Since we can speak plainly here, let me just thank you directly for this opportunity."

Iris just stared.

"Sorry for the delay." He spoke a bit more quickly now, misinterpreting her stare as impatience. "Recruiting in Britain has been very successful. The moderate and progressive families tend to join with very little persuasion, just mention of your name is usually enough. The more conservative families take more convincing, but we've found that showing them memories of your encounters with past years of defense professors to be very very persuasive."

"Luna!" Iris said desperately, seeking a last bastion of sanity in her quickly collapsing world.

"Infiltration of the Unspeakables has been successful, Boss." The girl said cheerily. "We've found tangible evidence of the Heliopath conspiracy, and are making slow progress in busting the whole thing wide open. The Ministry will be at our full mercy once we have all their dirty, magical laundry ready to expose to the world."

Iris sat back in her seat as the rest of the table congratulated each other on their works.

Maybe she had been dumped into an alternate dimension while she slept... That seemed plausible...

She glanced down at the cup in her trembling hand.

At least the coffee was good.