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Aurora Areli
MRS WEASLEY FOLLOWED US UPSTAIRS, wearing a grim expression.
"I want you all to go straight to bed, no talking," she said as we reached the first landing, "we've got a busy day tomorrow. I expect Ginny's asleep," she added to Hermione and me, "so try not to wake her up."
I highly doubted Ginny was actually asleep, but nevertheless, Hermione and I bid the boys goodnight before quietly slipping into our room. I made sure to lock the door behind us, since Kreacher had a tendency to wander in and snoop around our things.
As I suspected, Ginny was very awake, and greeted us by sitting upright in her bed and demanding that we tell her everything. After changing into our pyjamas and climbing into our own beds, Hermione and I obliged, and proceeded to tell the youngest Weasley everything that had been discussed in a whisper until we fell asleep.
Fortunately, that night was on the calmer side in terms of dreams. The ones I could remember seemed to be fairly normal, though of course, there were the usual flashes of hooded figures, snake-like faces with red eyes, and a familiar body falling heavy on the ground.
Due to the fact that I woke up so many times during the night, I was usually either the first or last person in the house to be awake. The following morning, I just so happened to be the very last.
"Rory, come on, wake up!" a girl's voice demanded, as a pair of hands shook my shoulders. I groaned in annoyance at having finally fallen into a deep sleep only to be woken up again.
"Mrs Weasley says to get up, we let you sleep in, but breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs us in the drawing room — the Doxy infestation is worse than we thought, and she's found a nest of dead Puffaskeins under the sofa."
For a few seconds, I kept my eyes closed, debating on whether or not it was worth it to actually get out of bed. That didn't work for very long, however, because someone (most likely Ginny) took it upon themselves to pull all of my blankets off of me. With a gasp at the sudden chill, I reluctantly rolled onto my side and sat up, rubbing my eyes blearily.
"Merlin, all right, I'm up," I said, turning to glare at Ginny and Hermione, who were already dressed.
Hermione was doing a very bad job at hiding her amusement. "We'll meet you downstairs."
With that, the two of them left the room, giggling amongst themselves and leaving me alone in the dreary bedroom. Exhaling deeply, I swung my legs off of the bed, only to wince when my bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. After getting dressed and throwing my hair into a messy sort of braid thing, I left the room for the kitchen.
When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that the vast room smelled of toast and tea. The second was that Ron and Harry were in there as well, munching on their breakfasts at the table. Well, Harry was, at least; Ron's plate was already empty.
"Morning," I greeted them, pouring myself a cup of tea.
"Right, I'm off," Ron said, standing up to put his plate in the sink. When I looked at him questioningly, he explained, "I'm not going to stay here and watch you two be all gross and couple-y."
I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help the slight warmth in my face. "We are not gross. Just wait 'til you get a girlfriend."
"Whatever," Ron muttered, and he left the kitchen.
Harry and I looked at each other, and I smiled somewhat awkwardly before moving back to the cabinet to get a plate. When I opened it, however, my smile immediately dropped. I hated when any of the boys put the dishes away — they always put the plates on the high shelf, no matter how many times Hermione, Ginny and I asked them not to. We couldn't use our wands to levitate them down.
With a sigh, I turned around.
"Hey, Harry?" I asked.
Harry hummed in response, looking up from the butter knife he was spinning on the table. When he saw that I was watching, Harry immediately stopped the knife spinning, and did a very bad job pretending that it hadn't been at all.
"Er — could you maybe help me?" I tried to hide my smile as I indicated to the out-of-reach dishware.
It was Harry's turn to smile, though it was more like a teasing smirk. "Yeah, hang on."
To my annoyance, Harry walked over and easily took down the plate I had been trying in vain to retrieve. I took it with a small pout, only making his smirk widen.
"I hate that you're so much taller than me now," I said, setting the plate down and standing up on my tiptoes. "I'm not even that short."
"Well, I think it's cute," Harry shrugged.
Despite having no real reason to be embarrassed, I felt my face grow warm. "Thank you?"
The Boy-Who-Lived chuckled. "You don't have to thank me every time I compliment you, Rory."
"I know that," I said, leaning my hip against the countertop. "We just haven't seen each other in a while, and I guess I'm not used to it."
Harry nodded. "Yeah, it has been a while."
For a moment, the two of us just stood there in silence, not really knowing what to say. It wasn't that it was uncomfortable, but there were so many things on my mind that I didn't know what to talk about first. Harry was the one to break the quiet.
"I — er — I really missed you," he said, looking down at the bread box on the counter's surface. "And I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have said all that stuff. It wasn't true."
I frowned, confused. "What wasn't true?"
"That I was the one who went through everything on my own," Harry said. "You were with me for most of it — I shouldn't have just ignored that."
"It's all right," I told him, shaking my head. "You were angry, and you didn't mean it. I understand."
"That doesn't make it okay," Harry said.
I bit my lip. Sure, I had been upset that he had just brushed me off yesterday like it was nothing, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised how much anger makes people say things without thinking. Harry clearly felt bad about it, and he apologized, so there was no reason to hold a grudge.
"Hey, don't worry about it," I said, taking hold of one of his hands. "I forgive you."
Harry looked extremely relieved. "Oh, okay, good — great."
My lips turned upward in amusement. I squeezed his hand and stepped forward slightly. When emerald met sea-green, however, I hesitated, suddenly feeling very flustered. What if in the past month Harry had decided that he just wanted to be friends?
I didn't have too much time to worry about that, though, because in the few seconds hesitation, Harry had already leant down to meet my lips with his own, making any doubt of mine vanish.
I pulled away a few seconds later to say, "I missed you, too."
Harry smiled, before letting go of my hand to pull me closer by the waist for another kiss. What felt like thousands of butterflies erupted in my stomach as I brought my hands up to rest on his shoulders, moving my lips with his. I could think of nothing else at that moment, including the fact that we were in the middle of the kitchen, and anybody could walk in.
So when a surprised, "Oh!" rang out, Harry and I both jumped in shock, breaking apart at once.
I quickly looked toward the source of the noise to find Ginny standing in the doorway, covering her giggling mouth with her hand.
"Sorry, Mum sent me to come find you two, she needs everyone in the drawing room," Ginny said. "I'd've knocked if I knew you were so busy."
If I was blushing before, it was nothing compared to now. I cleared my throat and shook my head. "No, no, it's okay. We should, um, probably get going."
"Yeah," Harry nodded quickly, his face very red as well.
Ginny left the room, but not without suggestively wiggling her eyebrows at me. I pretended not to notice, and instead picked up a piece of toast to shove in my mouth before Harry and I followed her upstairs.
When we entered the drawing room, we found Mrs Weasley, Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, Atticus, and, of course, Ginny, grouped around the long, moss green velvet curtains, which were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. They all looked very peculiar as they each tied a cloth over their nose and mouth, and Mrs Weasley handed out large bottles of black liquid with a nozzle at the end.
"Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs Weasley said to Harry and me as soon as she noticed we were there, pointing to two more bottles of black liquid standing on a spindle-legged table. "It's Doxycide. I've never seen an infestation this bad — what that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years —"
Hermione's face may have been half-concealed by a tea towel, but I distinctly saw her throw a reproachful look at Mrs Weasley.
"Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage —"
"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," Sirius said, having just entered the room. He was carrying a blood-stained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. I scrunched up my nose as I knotted my tea towel behind my head. "I've just been feeding Buckbeak," he added to Harry. "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway . . . this writing desk . . ."
Sirius dropped the bag of rats into an armchair, then bent over to examine the trembling locked cabinet.
"Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a Boggart," he said, peering through the keyhole, "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shufti at it before we let it out — knowing my mother, it could be something much worse."
"Right you are, Sirius," Mrs Weasley said.
Both of their tones to each other were carefully light and polite. It was clear that neither had forgotten their disagreement from the night before.
A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed immediately by the usual cacophony of screams and wails.
"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" Sirius said exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room. I heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs Black's screeches echoed up through the house again:
"Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth . . ."
"Close the door, please, Harry," Mrs Weasley said.
It was obvious that Harry was purposefully taking a long time to close the drawing-room door; my guess was that he wanted to listen to what was going on downstairs. Mrs Weasley seemed to notice this as well, because she kept staring at him until he regretfully shut the door and joined us again.
By the time Harry had resumed his spot next to me, Mrs Weasley was already leaning over to check the page on Doxys in Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa. I wanted to roll my eyes at the memory of that old fraud.
"Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because Doxys bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it."
She straightened up, positioned herself squarely in front of the curtains and beckoned us all forward.
"When I say the word, start spraying immediately," she said. "They'll come flying at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyse them. When they're immobilised, just throw them in this bucket."
She stepped carefully out of our line of fire, and raised her own spray.
"All right — squirt!"
Not even a few seconds after we started spraying, fully grown Doxys came soaring out of the folds in the material, shiny beetle-like wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, fairy-like bodies covered with thick black fur and four tiny fists each, clenched with fury. I took a half of a step backwards and caught one right in the face with a blast of Doxycide. It fell onto the worn carpet below with a surprisingly loud thunk.
"Ew," I muttered, as I picked it up and threw it into the bucket.
"Fred, what are you doing?" Mrs Weasley said sharply, making me look up. "Spray that at once and throw it away!"
Fred was holding a struggling Doxy between his forefinger and thumb, examining it.
"Right-o," Fred said brightly, quickly spraying the Doxy in the face so that it fainted. I had already turned back to paralyse some Doxys of my own, but I could have sworn I saw Fred pocket the thing when his mother's back was turned.
I shook my head, choosing not to question it. The less I knew, the better.
De-Doxying the curtains took most of the morning. It was past midday when Mrs Weasley finally removed her protective scarf, sank into a sagging armchair and sprang up again with a cry of disgust, having sat on the bag of dead rats. The curtains were no longer buzzing, instead hanging limp and damp from the intensive spraying. The bucket of unconscious Doxys sat at the foot of them, as well as a bowl of their black eggs, which Crookshanks was sniffing.
"I think we'll tackle those after lunch." Mrs Weasley pointed at the dusty glass-fronted cabinets standing on either side of the mantlepiece. They were crammed with an odd assortment of objects, from rusty daggers to coiled snakeskin to bottles of what I really hoped was not blood.
The clanging doorbell rang again. Everyone looked at Mrs Weasley.
"Stay here," she told us firmly, snatching up the bag of rats as Mrs Black began screeching again. "I'll bring up some sandwiches."
No sooner had she left and closed the door behind her did we all dash over to the window to look down on the doorstep. We could see the top of an unkempt gingery head and a stack of precariously balanced cauldrons.
"Mundungus!" Hermione said. "What's he brought all those cauldrons for?"
"Probably looking for a safe place to keep them," Harry said. "Isn't that what he was doing the night he was supposed to be tailing me? Picking up dodgy cauldrons?"
"Yeah, you're right!" said Fred, as the front door opened; Mundungus heaved his cauldrons through it and disappeared from view. "Blimey, Mum won't like that . . ."
He and George crossed to the door and stood beside it, listening intently. Mrs Black's screaming had stopped.
"Mundungus is talking to Sirius and Kingsley," Fred muttered, frowning with concentration. "Can't hear properly . . . d'you reckon we can risk the Extendable Ears?"
"Might be worth it," George said. "I could sneak upstairs and get a pair —"
But that wouldn't be necessary, because Mrs Weasley began shouting at the top of her lungs; none of us could misunderstand what she was saying.
"WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!"
"I love hearing Mum shouting at someone else," Fred said, with a satisfied smile as he opened the door an inch or so to allow Mrs Weasley's voice to permeate the room better, "it makes such a nice change."
"— COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, AS IF WE HAVEN'T GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT WITHOUT YOU DRAGGING STOLEN CAULDRONS INTO THE HOUSE —"
"The idiots are letting her get into her stride," George said, shaking his head. "You've got to head her off early otherwise she builds up a head of steam and goes on for hours. And she's been dying to have a go at Mundungus ever since he sneaked off when he was supposed to be following you, Harry — and there goes Sirius' mum again."
Mrs Weasley's voice was lost amid fresh shrieks and screams from the portraits in the hall.
George made to shut the door to drown the noise, but before he could do so, Kreacher decided to edge into the room.
The strange elf took no notice of any of us. Acting as though he couldn't see us, Kreacher shuffled hunchbacked, slowly and doggedly, towards the far end of the room, muttering under his breath all the while.
". . . smells like a drain and a criminal to boot, but she's no better, nasty old blood traitor with her brats messing up my mistress's house; oh, my poor mistress, if she knew, if she knew the scum they've let into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher, oh, the shame of it, Mudbloods and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do . . ."
"Hello, Kreacher," Fred said very loudly, closing the door with a snap.
Kreacher froze in his tracks, stopped muttering, and gave a very pronounced and very unconvincing start of surprise.
"Kreacher did not see young master," he said, turning around and bowing to Fred. Still facing the carpet, he added, perfectly audibly, "Nasty little brat of a blood traitor it is."
"Sorry?" George said. "Didn't catch that last bit."
"Kreacher said nothing," said the elf, with a second bow to George, adding in a clear undertone, "and there's its twin, unnatural little beasts they are."
That time, I did roll my eyes, catching Harry's amused ones. Kreacher straightened up, eyeing us all malevolently, apparently convinced that we couldn't hear him as he continued to mutter.
". . . and there's the Mudblood, standing there bold as brass, oh, if my mistress knew, oh, how she'd cry, and there's a new boy, Kreacher doesn't know his name. What is he doing here? Kreacher doesn't know . . ."
"This is Harry, Kreacher," Hermione said tentatively. "Harry Potter."
Kreacher's pale eyes widened and he muttered faster and more furiously than ever.
"The Mudblood is talking to Kreacher as though she is my friend, if Kreacher's mistress saw him in such company, oh, what would she say —"
"Don't call her a Mudblood!" Ron, Ginny and I said together in irritation.
"It doesn't matter," Hermione whispered, "he's not in his right mind, he doesn't know what he's —"
Atticus scoffed. "Don't kid yourself, Hermione, he knows exactly what he's saying."
Kreacher was still muttering, his eyes on Harry.
"Is it true? Is it Harry Potter? Kreacher can see the scar, it must be true, that's the boy who stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it —"
"Don't we all, Kreacher," Fred said, eyeing him with great dislike.
"What do you want, anyway?" George asked.
Kreacher's huge eyes darted towards George.
"Kreacher is cleaning," he said evasively.
"A likely story," said a voice from behind Harry and me.
Sirius had come back; he was glowering at Kreacher from the doorway. The noise in the hall was gone, telling me that Mrs Weasley and Mundungus might have moved their argument down to the kitchen. At the sight of Sirius, Kreacher flung himself into a ridiculously low bow that flattened his snoutlike nose on the floor.
"Stand up straight," Sirius said impatiently. "Now, what are you up to?"
"Kreacher is cleaning," the elf repeated. "Kreacher lives to serve the Noble House of Black —"
"And it's getting blacker every day, it's filthy," said Sirius.
"Master always liked his little joke," Kreacher said, bowing again, and continuing in an undertone, "Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart —"
"My mother didn't have a heart, Kreacher," Sirius snapped. "She kept herself alive out of pure spite."
Kreacher bowed again as he spoke.
"Whatever Master says," he muttered furiously. "Master is not fit to wipe slime from his mother's boots, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw Kreacher serving him, how she hated him, what a disappointment he was —"
"I asked you what you were up to," Sirius said coldly. "Every time you show up pretending to be cleaning, you sneak something off to your room so we can't throw it out."
"Kreacher would never move anything from its proper place in Master's house," Kreacher said, then muttered very fast, "Mistress would never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out, seven centuries it's been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher will not let Master and the blood traitors and the brats destroy it —"
"I thought it might be that," Sirius said, casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. "She'll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don't doubt, but if I can get rid of it I certainly will. Now go away, Kreacher."
Kreacher didn't dare disobey a direct order, but nevertheless, he gave Sirius a look of deepest loathing as he shuffled past him, and muttered all the way out of the room.
"— comes back from Azkaban ordering Kreacher around, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw the house now, scum living in it, her treasures thrown out, she swore he was no son of hers and he's back, they say he's a murderer too —"
"Keep muttering and I will be a murderer!" Sirius said irritably as he slammed the door shut on Kreacher.
"Sirius, he's not right in the head," Hermione pleaded, "I don't think he realises we can hear him."
"He's been alone too long," Sirius said, "taking mad orders from my mother's portrait and talking to himself, but he was always a foul little —"
"If you could just set him free," Hermione said hopefully, "maybe —"
"We can't set him free, he knows too much about the Order," Sirius said curtly. "And anyway, the shock would kill him. You suggest to him that he leaves this house, see how he takes it."
Sirius walked across the room to where the tapestry Kreacher had been trying to protect hung the length of the wall. The rest of us followed.
The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and seemed to have been chewed by Doxys. Nevertheless, the golden thread that embroidered it still glinted brightly enough to show us a sprawling family tree dating back to the Middle Ages as far as I could see. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read:
THE NOBLE AND
MOST ANCIENT
HOUSE OF BLACK
'TOUJOURS PUR'
"You're not on here!" Harry said, seeming surprised. I frowned, but upon further inspection, I realised he was right.
"I used to be there," Sirius said, pointing at a small, round, charred hole in the tapestry, as though it had been burned with a cigarette. "My sweet old mother blasted me off after I ran away from home — Kreacher's quite fond of muttering the story under his breath."
"You ran away from home?" Harry looked amazed.
"When I was about sixteen," Sirius confirmed. "I'd had enough."
"Where did you go?" Harry asked, staring at him.
"Your dad's place," Sirius said. "Your grandparents were really good about it; they sort of adopted me as a second son. Yeah, I camped out at your dad's in the school holidays, and when I was seventeen I got a place of my own. My Uncle Alphard had left me a decent bit of gold — he's been wiped off here, too, that's probably why — anyway, after that I looked after myself. I was always welcome at Mr and Mrs Potter's for Sunday lunch, though."
"But . . . why did you . . . ?"
"Leave?" Sirius smiled bitterly and ran his fingers through his long, unkempt hair. "Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal . . . my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them . . . that's him."
Sirius jabbed a finger at the very bottom of the tree, where the name 'Regulus Black' was embroidered above a birth and death date (some fifteen years ago).
"He was younger than me," Sirius said, "and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded."
"But he died," Harry said.
"Yeah," Sirius said. "Stupid idiot . . . he joined the Death Eaters."
"You're kidding!"
"Come on, Harry, haven't you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family were?" Sirius said testily.
"Were — were your parents Death Eaters as well?"
"No, no, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having pure bloods in charge. They weren't alone, either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colours, who thought he had the right idea about things . . . they got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little hero for joining up at first."
"Was he killed by an Auror?" Harry asked tentatively, and I looked up at Sirius curiously; both my parents were Aurors, so that question struck close to home.
"Oh, no," Sirius said. "No, he was murdered by Voldemort. Or on Voldemort's orders, more likely; I doubt Regulus was ever important enough to be killed by Voldemort in person. From what I found out after he died, he got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It's a lifetime service or death."
"Lunch," Mrs Weasley's voice announced, interrupting Sirius' solemn words.
Mrs Weasley came in holding her wand high before her, balancing a huge tray loaded with sandwiches and cake on its tip. She was very red in the face, still looking angry. Everyone besides Harry and I moved over to her, eager for some food. While I was a little hungry (having only eaten one piece of toast all day), I wanted to hear more of what Sirius had to say.
"I haven't looked at this for years," said Sirius, who had bent closer to the tapestry. "There's Phineas Nigellus . . . my great-great-great grandfather, see? . . . least popular Headmaster Hogwarts ever had . . . and Araminta Meliflua . . . cousin of my mother's . . . tried to force through a Ministry Bill to make Muggle-hunting legal . . . and dear Aunt Elladora . . . she started the family tradition of beheading house-elves when they got too old to carry tea trays . . . of course, any time the family produced someone halfway decent they were disowned. I see Tonks isn't on here. Maybe that's why Kreacher won't take orders from her — he's supposed to do whatever anyone in the family asks him —"
"You and Tonks are related?" Harry asked, clearly surprised.
I smiled slightly, amused. I was sure that was mentioned some time over dinner last night, whether by me or not. Trust Harry to forget it.
"Oh, yeah, her mother Andromeda was my favourite cousin," Sirius said, examining the tapestry carefully. "No, Andromeda's not on here either, look —"
He pointed to another small round burn mark between two names, Bellatrix and Narcissa.
"Andromeda's sisters are still here because they made lovely, respectable pure-blood marriages, but Andromeda married a Muggle-born, Ted Tonks, so —"
Sirius pretended to blast the tapestry with his wand and laughed sourly. I shook my head in amusement, but when I saw that Harry looked anything but, I followed his line of sight to the names right of Andromeda's burn mark. A double line of gold embroidery linked Narcissa Black with Lucius Malfoy and a single vertical gold line from their names led to the name Draco.
"You're related to the Malfoys!" Harry exclaimed, and I frowned.
"The pure-blood families are all interrelated," Sirius said. "If you're only going to let your sons and daughters marry pure-bloods your choice is very limited; there are hardly any of us left. Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur's something like my second cousin once removed. But there's no point looking for them on here — if ever a family was a bunch of blood traitors it's the Weasleys."
I scanned the tapestry closely, wondering if the Gryffindor descendants might be present. There had been so much happening the past few years that I hadn't had much time to work out my family history as much as I would have liked. Unsurprisingly, however, they weren't there. Dad was a half-blood, so that made sense, and Mum was adopted, so nobody knew for sure what she was.
"Lestrange . . ." Harry spoke up, staring just as intently at the tapestry as I was. That name was familiar, and it brought an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"They're in Azkaban," Sirius said shortly.
Harry looked at him curiously.
"Bellatrix and her husband Rodolphus came in with Barty Crouch junior," Sirius said, in the same brusque tone. "Rodolphus' brother, Rabastan was with them, too."
It suddenly dawned on me where I remembered the name. Harry and I had seen Bellatrix Lestrange inside Dumbldore's Pensieve, a dark, maniacal woman who was, without a doubt, still completely loyal to Voldemort.
"You never said she was your —"
"Does it matter if she's my cousin?" Sirius snapped. "As far as I'm concerned, they're not my family. She's certainly not my family. I haven't seen her since I was your age, unless you count a glimpse of her coming into Azkaban. D'you think I'm proud of having a relative like her?"
"Sorry," Harry said quickly, and I took hold of his hand, "I didn't mean — I was just surprised, that's all —"
"It doesn't matter, don't apologise," Sirius mumbled, turning away from the tapestry with his hands deep in his pockets. "I don't like being back here," he said, staring across the drawing room. "I never thought I'd be stuck in this house again."
I frowned again, feeling very sorry for Sirius. I knew that he wished he could do more to help, and it was unfair that he was stuck here, still labelled as a dangerous mass-murderer. There was nothing really to be done about it, but I still felt bad.
"It's ideal for Headquarters, of course," Sirius said. "My father put every security measure known to wizardkind on it when he lived here. It's unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call — as if they'd ever have wanted to — and now Dumbledore's added his protection, you'd be hard put to find a safer house anywhere. Dumbledore is Secret Keeper for the Order, you know — nobody can find Headquarters unless he tells them personally where it is — that note Moody showed you last night, Harry, that was from Dumbledore . . ." Sirius gave a short, barklike laugh. "If my parents could see the use their house was being put to now . . . well, my mother's portrait should give you some idea . . ."
He scowled for a moment, then sighed.
"I wouldn't mind if I could just get out occasionally and do something useful. I've asked Dumbledore whether I can escort you to your hearing — as Snuffles, obviously — so I can give you a bit of moral support, what d'you think?"
I felt my stomach sink, having almost completely forgotten about Harry's hearing. It seemed that he had as well, because his face dropped and paled. I squeezed his hand in reassurance, but couldn't help but feel a sense of dread at the thought of Harry not returning to Hogwarts with Hermione, the Weasleys, Atticus and I this September.
I shook my head once, clearing my negative thoughts. That wouldn't help anything. I looked up at Harry, who turned to me as well.
"Everything'll be fine," I said, my voice more confident than I felt. "They can't not clear you, there's definitely something in the International Statute of Secrecy about using magic to save your own life — Hermione and I made sure."
"She's right," Sirius said. "Don't worry, Harry, I'm sure they'll clear you."
"But if they do expel me," Harry said quietly, "can I come back here and live with you?"
Sirius smiled sadly.
"We'll see."
"I'd feel a lot better about the hearing if I knew I didn't have to go back to the Dursleys'," Harry pressed him.
"They must be bad if you prefer this place," Sirius said gloomily.
"Hurry up, you three, or there won't be any food left," Mrs Weasley called.
Sirius heaved another great sigh, and cast a dark look at the tapestry before he, Harry and I went to join the others.
. . . . .
For the rest of the afternoon, I tried my hardest to keep Harry distracted from thinking about the hearing (and distracting myself in the process, to be honest). Fortunately, the job of emptying the dusty glass cabinets helped with that, as it required a lot of concentration. Many of the objects seemed reluctant to leave their shelves. Fairly quickly, Sirius had gotten bitten by a silver snuffbox, and within seconds, the hand with the bite developed an unpleasant crusty covering like a tough brown glove.
"It's okay," he said, examining the hand with interest before lightly tapping it with his wand and restoring his skin to normal, "must be Wartcap powder in there."
He threw the box aside into the sack where were depositing debris from the cabinets before turning back to help me remove a jewel-encrusted hair clip from the hem of my jacket, which it refused to let go of.
Aside from that, we found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, which reminded me of a many-legged pair of tweezers. To my alarm, it scuttled up Harry's arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to puncture his skin. I managed to maintain enough sense to seize a heavy book (Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy) and smash it before it could actually harm him.
There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling sound when wound, and we all became curiously weak and sleepy until Ginny had the right judgement to slam the lid shut. Also, a heavy locket that none of us could open, a number of ancient seals, and, in a dusty box, an Order of Merlin, First Class, that had been awarded to Sirius' grandfather for "services to the Ministry".
"It means he gave them a load of gold," Sirius said contemptuously, throwing the medal into the rubbish sack.
Kreacher sidled into the room several times and attempted to smuggle things away under his loincloth, muttering horrible curses every time we caught him at it. When Sirius wrested a large golden ring bearing the Black crest from his grip, Kreacher actually burst into furious tears and left the room sobbing under his breath and calling Sirius names I had never heard before.
"It was my father's," Sirius said, throwing the ring into the sack. "Kreacher wasn't quite as devoted to him as to my mother, but I still caught him snogging a pair of my father's old trousers last week."
. . . . .
Mrs Weasley kept all of us working hard over the next few days. The drawing room in itself took three days to decontaminate. Finally, the only undesirable things left in it were the tapestry, which refused to be removed from the wall, and the rattling writing desk. Moody hadn't been to the Headquarters yet, so we couldn't be sure what was inside of it.
We moved on to a dining room on the ground floor where we discovered spiders as large as saucers lurking in the dresser (Ron left the room in a hurry to make a cup of tea and didn't return for another hour and a half). The china bearing the Black family crest and motto, as well as a set of old photographs in tarnished silver frames were all thrown unceremoniously into a sack by Sirius, who ignored the screaming of the occupants in the photographs when their glass covering smashed.
"All this cleaning is more like going to war with the house," Harry said to me one day, while we were sorting through yet another cabinet.
I huffed, finally giving up on trying to pick up a decorative knife, which stuck itself to the bottom of said cabinet. "Well, in that case, the house is winning."
Kreacher didn't help our cause very much. The house-elf kept appearing wherever we were congregated, his muttering becoming more and more offensive as he attempted to remove anything he could from the rubbish sacks. Sirius went so far as to threaten him with clothes, but Kreacher fixed him with a watery stare and said, "Master must do as Master wishes," before turning away and muttering very loudly, "but Master will not turn Kreacher away, no, because Kreacher knows what they are up to, oh yes, he is plotting against the Dark Lord, yes, with these Mudbloods and traitors and scum . . ."
Ignoring Hermione's protests, Sirius seized Kreacher by the back of his loincloth and threw him bodily from the room.
The doorbell rang several times each day, which was the cue for Sirius' mother to start shrieking again, and for Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, Atticus and I to try and eavesdrop on the visitor. Our efforts earned very little, because Mrs Weasley always recalled us to our tasks fairly quickly. There were several different visitors, including my parents (who were always busy now), Snape (yuck) and Professor McGonagall, who looked not at all like herself in a Muggle dress and coat. Most of them were too busy to linger.
Sometimes, however, the visitors stayed to help. Tonks joined us for a memorable afternoon in which we found a murderous old ghoul lurking in an upstairs toilet, and Lupin and Dad, who were also staying in Sirius' house, but left it for work and other long periods to do mysterious work for the Order, helped us repair a grandfather clock that had developed the habit of shooting heavy bolts at anyone who passed by. Mundungus even redeemed himself slightly in Mrs Weasley's eyes by rescuing Ron from an ancient set of purple robes that had tried to strangle him when he removed them from their wardrobe.
Now that Harry was finally here, the house seemed much more cheerful. Not only were there significantly less people worried about him, but his company definitely helped as well. None of us talked about the Ministry hearing, (which was a topic I could tell Harry was avoiding), but Ron and Hermione were constantly whispering together and casting anxious looks in his direction.
In some of the few moments we got alone, I assured Harry to the best of my ability that he wasn't going to be expelled, as everyone else wasn't doing a very good job of it. He didn't break the law, so there was no reason for the Ministry to say otherwise.
Well, except maybe for the fact that they were upset about Harry's claims that Voldemort had returned.
At dinner on Wednesday, the evening before the hearing, Mrs Weasley turned to Harry and said, "I've ironed your best clothes for tomorrow morning, Harry, and I want you to wash your hair tonight, too. A good first impression can work wonders."
Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny, Atticus and I stopped talking and looked over at him. Well, everyone but Atticus and me looked at him; my brother thought himself too cool to look worried, and I didn't want to add to Harry's discomfort. Out of my peripheral vision, however, I saw him nod and continue chewing very slowly.
I picked up my cup and awkwardly took a sip of tea, my mouth suddenly having gone very dry.
"How am I getting there?" Harry asked Mrs Weasley, and I could tell he was trying to seem unconcerned, but I knew him too well.
"Arthur's taking you to work with him," Mrs Weasley said gently.
Mr Weasley smiled encouragingly at Harry across the table.
"You can wait in my office until it's time for the hearing," he said.
Harry looked over at Sirius, probably to ask if he was able to go as well, but Mrs Weasley spoke up before he could.
"Professor Dumbledore doesn't think it's a good idea for Sirius to go with you, and I must say I —"
"— think he's quite right," Sirius said through clenched teeth.
Mrs Weasley pursed her lips, and Att and I shared a look in the tense moment.
"When did Dumbledore tell you that?" Harry asked, staring at Sirius.
"He came last night, when you were in bed," said Mr Weasley.
That time, it was I who ground my teeth together. Of course he had come while we were asleep; there would be no time for any of us to ask him anything important. To get any answers we were promised.
Sirius stabbed a potato moodily with his fork. I finally glanced towards Harry to see him lower his own gaze to his plate. I reached over to take hold of his hand under the table.
Harry didn't look up, but he intertwined our fingers and squeezed slightly, and I felt my own bad feelings subside, if only just a little bit.
-
today marks a year of when i first posted this story so that's pretty exciting
also! thank you so much for 100k!!! it's weird to think that so many people would want to read this but you have no idea how much i appreciate all of your reads and votes and comments and pms and yeah. i still can't believe it? and can't thank you enough :))
stay safe!!