Forbidden Fantasies (Darkest Desire Book 2)

2. The High Council of Alchemists

At first, this bothered me inmensely, and I had come close to asking him to just back the hell off and to leave me alone. But that was before I saw Severus's reaction towards Sirius's behaviour. It gave me a strange sense of enpowerment to be able to elicit such angry reactions from Severus by just smiling back at Sirius whenever he said something to me, or responding with some friendly banter instead of blowing himm off like I had intended to do. The first time I did that, it had been oddly exciting to see Severus flinch, to see the anger flaring in his eyes. It was emotion, after all. Something other than the cold indiference he usually sent my way. This was a demonstration of something other than harsh dismissiveness he usually displayed around me.

Ron and Hermione arrived at Grimmauld Place 12 after three weeks I had spent soley ion the company of Sirius. It was kinda strange, to have them around again. I had grown used to being alone with Black, and now the huse seemed busier than usual. When Fred and George also joined in and took up residence for the remainder of the vacation, it finally started to look like the hose was being lived in after all. Molly Weasley also spent a lot of time at the House, and was a force to be reckoned with when it came to cleaning.

Now the cleaning began in earnest, and the seven of us spent an aweful lot of time cleaning the house. It was a full time job, trying to make the house a place people could live in. Makin the residence habitable was quite the challenge, and we were usually completely beaten by the time dinner came around.

It was just one of those days in which everything seemed more difficult. Cleaning up the attic I had found a Boggart that seemed determined to ruin my day. It wasn't like I couldn't handle him, no, that part was easy. The thing was that finding the damn thing had taken the best part of the day since the whole atrium was stuffed with boxes and broken furniture, all excellent places for the little bastard to hide out in. When I finally located he damn creature I had him premanently removed within five minutes. By now I was covered in a layer of dust that seemed several inches thick, with dark smudges across my face from where I had tried to push back several rebellious starands of hair that had fallen n front of my face. Without success, I might add. My hair looked like a birds nest, I presumed, with spiderweds and tendrils of Merlin-knew-what matting the silvery strands.

"GUYS!" Molly's voice rung from downstairs "LUNCH IS READY!"

Sighing I made my way downstairs, muttering curses about the damn boggart under my breath as I decended the stairs. On the second floor I ran into Hermione, who smiled encouragingly at me and headed downstairs with me.

On the grond floor I joined up with Ron and together the three of us made our way into the kitchen, where Sirius was already sitting at the table, hungrily looking at the food Molly was placing on the wooden table. The twins waltzed in and loudly flopped down into two empty chairs just as we were sitting down.

"Hey Fred, look what the cat dragged in" George joked as he took in my haggard apprearance.

"Jeez Rory, what happened to you?" Fred said as he gave me a once-over.

"It's called cleaning" I grumbled under my breath.

"No, really Rory. What happened?" said George with an amused smile.

"Damn Boggart hiding in the attic" I muttered as I angrily poked at the sandwich Molly was handing us "The little bastard was hidin and it took me like forever to find him..."

Fred burst out laughing and soon Sirius and George joined in. Ron was snickering and even Molly and Hermione couldn't keep the smiles off their faces.

"Thank you guys.... Your support is greatly appreciated" I said darkly, rolling my eyes at the others amusement in my expense.

"Oh don't be like that Rory! You must admit that it's kinda funny" George said as he threw a breadcrumb at me.