The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

10. Coward

"Icarus is flying too close to the sun, and Icarus' life has only just began. This is how it feels to take a fall, Icarus is falling towards an early grave" - Icarus, Bastille 

If Kreacher can escape lake full of Inferi, I'm confident that the capture of Mundungus Fletcher will take a few hours at most, and so I prowl the house all morning in a state of high anticipation. However, Kreacher does not return this morning, or even in the afternoon. By nightfall, I feel discouraged and anxious, and a supper composed of unlargely moldly bread, upon which Hermione has tried a vareity of unsuccessful Transfiguarations, do nothing to help. When Dad and Sirius do not join us for this lackluster supper I know that something is wrong, doubling my anxiety. I think he had somewhat come to terms with what happened to his brother, who was evil enough to join Voldemort, and yet too cowardly to follow through with it, but the new turn of events have clearly shaken him. It was easy to believe that his brother was an idiot, but a hero? Nobody could have seen that coming. 

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

"Death Eaters, for sure," says Dad, on one of his rare visits down from Sirius' room. 

"Reckon they know we're in here?" Ron asks. 

"I don't think so," says Hermione, though she looks 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?" asks Ron. 

"Yes," says Hermione, "otherwise he'd have been able to tel that lot how to get in, wouldn't he? But they're probably watching to see whether we turn up. They know that Sirius owns the house, they'd expect Harry and Haylee to come here."

The presence of the Death Eaters outside increases the onimous mood inside number twelve. We have not heard from anyone beyond Grimmauld Place since Mr Weasley's Patronus, and though Dad and Sirius' reassurance comforted us at the time, the longer we go without new information the more anxious To make matters worse, Sirius has secluded himself since Kreacher's tale, speaking rarely to Dad, and only leaving his room for food or drink, only adding to our restlessness and irritability. Ron has developed an annoying habit of playing with the Deluminator in his pocket; This particularly infuriates Hermione, who is whiling away the wait for Kreacher by studying The Tales of Beedle the Bard and does not appreciate the way the lights keep flashing on and off. 

"Will you stop it!" she cries on the third evening of Kreacher's absence, as all light is sucked from the drawing room yet again. 

"Sorry, sorry!" says Ron, 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 used it!"

Unable to stand the bickering, I slip out of the room noticed only by Harry. I've only walked a few meters through the hall before I come to a grinding halt: in the room which holds the Black family tapestry stands Sirius, staring mournfully at the walls. I stand in silence for a moment, debating whether or not to approach him; but I blow my cover when the old floorboards creak beneath my boots. 

"Come in, Haylee," Sirius calls, with a ghost of a chuckle. 

"I didn't mean to bother you," I say tentatively as I enter, my eyes immediately drawn to the image of Regulus Black upon the tapestry.