House of Black

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"What the bloody fuck is Order of the — ?" Avianna began.

"Not here, girl!" snarled Moody. "Wait till we're inside!"

"No need to yell though!" She grumbled.

He pulled the piece of parchment out of Avia's hand and set fire to it with his wand tip. As the message curled into flames and floated to the ground, Avianna looked around at the houses again. They were standing outside number eleven; she looked to the left and saw number ten; to the right, however, was number thirteen.

"Magic?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, think about what you've just memorized," said Remus quietly. Avianna thought, and no sooner had he reached the part about number twelve, Grimmauld Place, than a battered door emerged out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen, followed swiftly by dirty walls and grimy windows. It was as though an extra house had inflated, pushing those on either side out of its way. Avia smiled at it. The stereo in number eleven thudded on. Apparently the Muggles inside hadn't even felt anything.

"Come on, hurry," growled Moody, from behind Avianna.

Avianna walked up the worn stone steps, staring at the newly materialized door. Its black paint was shabby and scratched. The silver door knocker was in the form of a twisted serpent. There was no keyhole or letterbox.

Remus pulled out his wand and tapped the door once. Avia heard many loud, metallic clicks and what sounded like the clatter of a chain. The door creaked open.

"Get in quick, Avia," Lupin whispered. "But don't go far inside and don't touch anything."

Avianna stepped over the threshold into the almost total darkness of the hall. She could smell damp, dust, and a sweetish, rotting smell; the place had the feeling of a derelict building. She looked over her shoulder and saw the others filing in behind her, Remus and Tonks carrying her trunk and Hedwig's cage. Moody was standing on the top step and releasing the balls of light the Put-Outer had stolen from the street- lamps; they flew back to their bulbs and the square beyond glowed momentarily with orange light before Moody limped inside and closed the front door, so that the darkness in the hall became complete.

"Here —"

He rapped Avianna hard over the head with his wand; Avia felt as though something hot was trickling down her back this time and knew that the Disillusionment Charm must have lifted.

"Now stay still, everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here," Moody whispered.

The others' hushed voices were giving Avianna an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a somewhat decomposing body. She heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long, gloomy hallway, where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls. Avianna heard something scuttling behind the baseboard. Both the chandelier and the candelabra on a rickety table nearby were shaped like serpents. There were hurried footsteps and Ron's mother, Mrs. Weasley, emerged from a door at the far end of the hall. She was beaming in welcome as she hurried toward them, though Avianna noticed that she was rather thinner and paler than she had been last time she had seen her. She never trusted the woman, she seemed to pretend to love her children and manipulate them through her 'love' and then she wondered why Percy had left her, on top of that it seemed she was trying to replace Lily or Melina.

"Oh, Avia it's lovely to see you!" she whispered, pulling hee into an uncomfortable rib-cracking hug before holding her at arm's length and examining her critically. "You're looking peaky; you need feeding up, but you'll have to wait a bit for dinner, I'm afraid. . . ."