DH 7

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Kreacher did not return the following day, nor the day after that. However, two cloaked men had appeared in the square outside number twelve, and they remained there into the night, gazing
in the direction of the house that they cannot see. 

"Death Eaters, for sure," Ron said, as they watched from the drawing room windows. "Reckon they know we're in here?" 

"I don't think so," Hermione said, though she looked frightened "or they'd have sent Snape in after us, wouldn't they?" 

"D'you reckon he's been in here and had his tongue tied by Moody's curse?" asked Ron. 

"Yes," Hermione said, "otherwise he'd have been able to tell that lot how to get in, wouldn't he? But they're probably watching to see whether we turn up. They must know that Harry and Rory own the house. It'll be Ministry knowledge" The presence of the Death Eaters outside increased the ominous mood inside number twelves. They had not heard a word from anyone beyond Grimmauld Place since Mr. Weasley's Patronus, and the strain was starting to tell. Restless and irritable, Ron had developed an annoying habit of playing with the Deluminator in his pocket. This particularly infuriated Hermione, who was whiling away the wait for Kreacher by studying The Tales of Beedle the Bard and did not appreciate the way the lights kept flashing on and off.
"Will you stop it!" she cried out on the third evening of Kreacher's absence, as all light was sucked from the drawing room yet again. 

"Sorry, sorry!" Ron said, clicking the Deluminator and restoring the lights. "I don't know I'm doing it!" 

"Well, can't you find something useful to occupy yourself?" 

"What, like reading kids' stories?" 

"Dumbledore left me this book, Ron" 

"and he left me the Deluminator, maybe I'm supposed to use it!" Rory and Harry shared a quick look before both slipping out of the room unnoticed by either of Ron or Hermione. They headed downstairs toward the kitchen.

"How can two people argue so much" Rory said quietly as they started down the stairs.

"I know" Halfway down the flight of stairs into the hall they heard a tap on the front door, then
metallic clicks and the grinding of the chain. Rory looked at Harry, quietly getting her wand out of her pocket as he nodded and did the same. They moved into the shadows beside the decapitated elf heads, and waited. The door opened and they saw a glimpse of the lamplit
square outside, and a cloaked figure edged into the hall and closed the door behind it. The intruder took a step forward, and Moody's voice asked, 

"Severus Snape?" Then the dust figure rose from the end of the hall, and rushed him, raising its dead hand. 

"It was not I who killed you, Albus," said a quiet voice. The jinx broke: The dust-figure exploded again, and it was impossible to make out the newcomer through the dense grey cloud
it left behind. Rory and Harry pointed their wands into the middle of it. 

"Don't move!" Harry said. He had forgotten the portrait of Mrs. Black. At the sound of
his yell, the curtains hiding her flew open and she began to scream, 

"Mudbloods and filth dishonoring my house" Ron and Hermione came crashing down the stairs behind Harry and Rory, wands pointing, like his, at the unknown man now standing with
his arms raised in the hill below. 

"Hold your fire, it's me, Remus!" 

"Oh, thank goodness," Hermione said weakly, pointing her wand at Mrs. Black instead; with a bang, the curtains swished shut again and silence fell. Ron too lowered his wand, but Harry and Rory did not. 

"Show yourself!" Rory called back. Remus moved forward into the lamplight, hands still held high in a gesture of surrender. 

"I am Remus John Lupin, werewolf, sometimes known as Moony, one of the four creators of the Marauder's Map, married to Nymphadora, usually known as Tonks, godfather of you my little wolf, and I taught you how to produce a Patronus, Harry, which takes the form of a stag and yours is a wolf Rory." 

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