Courage

-59-

Layla walked over to sit in beside Tonks, taking in the scene carefully. Snape's visits were rare, and always very hushed. All of the Weasley siblings must have been up in their rooms. Mrs Weasley interrupted Layla's musings as she burst out of the kitchen slightly rosy-faced, a small glass goblet filled with Gillywater in one of her hands, a cup of tea in the other.

"You did hear me say—?" Snape started to inquire, but Mrs Weasley interrupted him as well.

"I did. This is for me," she sank into a chair, handing over the Gillywater to Tonks as she did so.

All of a sudden, a man with long black hair walked into the room. Layla cracked a small smile as she looked at the door to see Sirius.

"Hey, Siri," Layla stood up to hug Sirius, who smiled widely and hugged the young girl back. 

"Hello, Lays."

Layla then returned to her seat.

"Sirius!" Tonks cried jovially, also getting up and giving him a hug, too. He grinned happily and patted her on the back, sitting down and carefully avoiding Snape's presence, who was doing exactly the same to him.

"Cheers, Tonks," Sirius greeted her, nodding to Mrs Weasley.

"Nice to see you, Sirius..." Mrs Weasley said quietly. It was obvious she only half meant that statement. "Tonks and Severus just came back from a meeting with Mad-Eye and Remus."

"Well don't let me interrupt then," he said, jumping up. He was about to leave when Tonks said something that made him stop in his tracks.

"It's about Harry."

"Well then," Sirius said quickly, pivoting and sitting quickly back down in his chair. "I just might have to interrupt now."

Layla, however, tensed up and glared bitterly in front of her at nothing as she always did when Harry's name was mentioned. She wrote letters to Hermione, and to the Weasley siblings before they joined her home, but hadn't wrote a single letter to Harry and had burned the ones that he had wrote to her. Layla had never been one to hold a grudge, but that was the old Layla, she supposed.

"So?" Mrs Weasley asked after a moment's pause, in which Tonks loudly slurped her water and Sirius hummed a tuneless tune. "Anything?"

"Yes," Tonks said after she had swallowed a gulp of water. "Harry's gotten himself into a spot of trouble, it seems."

Mrs Weasley looked up as sharply and Sirius stopped humming immediately.

"Is he all right?" Mrs Weasley breathed anxiously. Snape let out an odd sound, halfway between a snort and a snicker.

"Of course," he said. "He always manages to get himself out of these situations."

Mrs Weasley diverted her gaze to Layla, who sat perched stock still on the ledge.

"Are you sure she should be in here?" she asked the two in front of her in hushed tones.

"Layla knows about everything that takes place in this room," said Sirius. "She lives here after all. I told her all about the Order of the Phoenix right away when she returned home this summer."

Mrs Weasley nodded, gave Layla another worried glance, and then looked back to Tonks.

"What happened?"

"To make a long story short, a few unexpected guests, dementors, showed up at his aunt and uncle's place — almost killed him and his cousin. But he's fine," she added quickly as Mrs Weasley clapped her hands to her mouth. "Really, he's fine. A little shaken I can guess, but as far as we can tell, no permanent damage. Mrs Figg found him afterwards and reported to Dumbledore immediately."