𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐃𝐇 𝟖

Emily woke early next morning, wrapped inside the comfort of her old bedroom, Harry sleeping beside her, her back pressed to his chest.

A chink of sky was visible between the heavy curtains: It was the cool, clear blue of watered ink, somewhere between night and dawn, and everything was quiet except for Harry's slow and deep breathing.

She looked up at her ceiling decorated in pictures of her and her family. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she had been standing in the sunlight at the entrance to the marquee, seeing Harry in his 'disguise' . It seemed a lifetime away. What was going to happen now? She lay on her bed and she thought of the Horcruxes, of the
daunting, complex mission Dumbledore had left Harry. . .

Emily couldn't stand lying in her old house, thinking of such tragic thoughts, Desperate for something to do, for distraction, she slipped out of her bed, picked up her wand, and crept out of her room.

On the landing she whispered, "Lumos," and walked around to the other side of the third floor.

Emily passed the bedroom in which Harry and Ron had slept last time they had been here; she glanced into it. The wardrobe doors stood open and the bedclothes had been ripped back. Emily remembered the overturned troll leg downstairs.

Somebody had searched the house since the Order had left. Snape? Or perhaps Mundungus, who had pilfered plenty from this house both before and after Sirius died? Emily's gaze wandered to the portrait that sometimes contained Phineas Nigellus Black, her great- great-great- grandfather, but it was empty, showing nothing but a stretch of muddy backdrop.

Phineas Nigellus was evidently spending the night in the headmaster's study at Hogwarts.

Emily continued up the stairs until she reached the topmost landing, where there were only two doors. The one facing her bore a nameplate reading Sirius. Emily couldn't remember what her dads room looked like.

She pushed open the door, holding her wand high to cast light as widely as possible. The room was spacious and must once have been handsome. There was a large bed with a carved wooden headboard, a tall window obscured by long velvet curtains, and a chandelier thickly coated in dust with candle stubs still resting in its sockets, solid wax hanging in frostlike drips. A fine film of dust covered the pictures on the walls and the bed's headboard; a spider's web stretched between the chandelier and the top of the large wooden wardrobe, and as Emily moved deeper into the room, she heard a scurrying of disturbed mice.

The teenage Sirius had plastered the walls with so many posters and pictures that little of the walls' silvery-gray silk was visible. Emily could only assume that Sirius's parents had been unable to remove the Permanent Sticking Charm that kept them on the wall, because she was sure they would not have appreciated their eldest son's taste in decoration.

Sirius seemed to have gone out of his way to annoy his parents. There were several large Gryffindor banners, faded scarlet and gold, just to underline his difference from all the rest of the Slytherin family. There were many pictures of Muggle motorcycles, and also (Emily had to admire Sirius's nerve) several posters of bikini-clad Muggle girls; Emily could tell that they were Muggles because they remained quite stationary within their pictures, faded smiles and glazed eyes frozen on the paper.

This was in contrast to the only Wizarding photograph on the walls, which was a picture of four Hogwarts students standing arm in arm, laughing at the camera.

Emily found Harry's father: his untidy black hair stuck up at the back like Harry's, and he too wore glasses. Beside him was Sirius, carelessly handsome, his slightly arrogant face so much younger and happier than Emily had ever seen it alive. To Sirius's right stood Pettigrew, more than a head shorter, plump and watery-eyed, flushed with pleasure at his inclusion in this coolest of gangs, with the much-admired rebels that James and Sirius had been. On James's left was Lupin, even then a little shabby-looking, but he had the same air of delighted surprise at finding himself liked and included . . .