_______ ✿☾☆♫ _______

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⚡︎
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄
ᵗʰᵉ ⁿᵒᵇˡᵉ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵒˢᵗ ᵃⁿᶜⁱᵉⁿᵗ ʰᵒᵘˢᵉ
ᵒᶠ ⁽ⁿᵒᵗ ˢᵒ⁾ ᵇˡᵃᶜᵏ

"— ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ's ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ʙʟᴀᴄᴋᴇʀ
ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴅᴀʏ, ɪᴛ's ꜰɪʟᴛʜʏ,"

𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 awoken by the rather annoyingly loud voice of George Weasley sounding throughout the room. 

"Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room, there are loads more doxies than she thought and she's found a nest of dead puffskeins under the sofa." 

Ron and Harry only groaned deeply at this. It was going to be a long day. Only half an hour later, the tow boys found themselves clothed, showered and had, had their breakfast. They quickly entered the drawing room, along with Tasmin who they (more like Harry) had bumped into on their way there. They all took in the sight of the room, the walls were olive green and peeling, the rug exhaled dust as soon as anyone were to step their foot onto it, and the curtains were buzzing as if though there were live bees in them. Hermione's words were now ringing true (not that they weren't already).

Hermione, Ginny, Fred, and George were grouped, all looking rather peculiar, as they had tied large white cloths over their noses and mouths and bore large hat - like things on their head. Each of them was also holding a large bottle of black liquid with a nozzle at the end. Harry thought they looked rather like those muggle - bee keepers on TV.

"Cover your faces and take a spray," Mrs. Weasley said to Harry, Tasmin and Ron the moment she saw the trio, pointing to three 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 —"

At Mrs. Weasley's words Hermione gave the woman a rather reproachful look. She was quick to defend the old - house elf, "Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage —"

"— You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," said Sirius, who had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats. "I've just been feeding Buckbeak," he added, in reply to both Tasmin and Harry's inquiring look. "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway . . . this writing desk . . ."

He dropped the bag of rats onto an armchair, then bent over to examine the locked cabinet which, Harry now noticed for the first time, was shaking ever so slightly. "Well, Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a boggart," said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, "but perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out — knowing my mother it could be something much worse."

"Right you are, Sirius," said Mrs. Weasley.

Harry noticed that they were both speaking in much more polite tones than they had at last nights dinner. They seemed to have somewhat made up, or be on mutual terms at least, both having the care of Harry at heart.

A loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs, followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails that had been triggered the previous night by Tonks knocking over the umbrella stand and Ginny's voile t slamming of the door. "I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying back out of the room. They heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs. Black's screeches echoed up through the house once more: "Stains of dishonor, filthy half - breeds, blood - traitors, children of filth . . ."

"Close the door, please, Harry," said Mrs. Weasley. Harry took as much time as he dared to close the drawing room door; he wanted to listen to what was going on downstairs. Sirius had obviously managed to shut the curtains over his mother's portrait because she had stopped screaming. He heard Sirius walking down the hall, then the clattering of the chain on the front door, and then a deep voice he recognized as Kingsley Shacklebolt's saying, "Hestia's just relieved me, so she's got Moody's cloak now, thought I'd leave a report for Dumbledore . . ."

Feeling Mrs. Weasley's eyes on the back of his head, Harry regretfully closed the drawing room door and rejoined the doxy party.

Mrs. Weasley was bending over to check the page on doxies in Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, which was lying open on the sofa. "Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because doxies 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 them all forward.

"When I say the word, start spraying immediately," she said. "They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket." She finished rather dismissively.

She stepped carefully out of their line of fire and raised her own spray. "All right — squirt!"

Harry had been spraying only a few seconds when a fully grown doxy came soaring out of a fold in the material, shiny beetlelike wings whirring, tiny needle - sharp teeth bared, its fairylike body covered with thick black hair and its four tiny fists clenched with fury. Harry caught it full in the face with a blast of Doxycide; it froze in midair and fell, with a surprisingly loud thunk, onto the worn carpet below. Harry picked it up and threw it in the bucket.

"Fred, what are you doing?" said Mrs. Weasley sharply. "Spray that at once and throw it away!"

Harry looked around. Fred was holding a struggling doxy between his forefinger and thumb. "Right - o," Fred said brightly, spraying the doxy quickly in the face so that it fainted, but the moment Mrs. Weasley's back was turned he pocketed it with a wink gaining a few laughs throughout the room, Mrs. Weasley turned back to them so fast Harry was sure she had gotten whiplash, immediately, they all found their Doxycide sprays rather interesting.

"We want to experiment with doxy venom for our Skiving Snackboxes," George told Harry under his breath.

Deftly spraying two doxies at once as they soared straight for his nose, Harry moved closer to George and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "What are Skiving Snackboxes?"

"Range of sweets to make you ill," George whispered, keeping a wary eye on Mrs. Weasley's back. "Not seriously ill, mind, just ill enough to get you out of a class when you feel like it. Fred and I have been developing them this summer. They're double - ended, color - coded chews. If you eat the orange half of the Puking Pastilles, you throw up. Moment you've been rushed out of the lesson for the hospital wing, you swallow the purple half —"

"'— which restores you to full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom.' That's what we're putting in the adverts, anyway," whispered Fred, who had edged over out of Mrs. Weasley's line of vision and was now sweeping a few stray doxies from the floor and adding them to his pocket. "But they still need a bit of work. At the moment our testers are having a bit of trouble stopping puking long enough to swallow the purple end."

"Testers?" Tasmin had asked as she moved over to the three boys stood in a rather conspicuous looking circle.

"Us," said Fred, answering her question. "We take it in turns. George did the Fainting Fancies — we both tried the Nosebleed Nougat —"

"Mum thought we'd been dueling," said George.

"Joke shop still on, then?" Harry muttered, pretending to be adjusting the nozzle on his spray when he felt the burning gaze of Mrs. Weasley on the back of his neck.

"Well, we haven't had a chance to get premises yet," said Fred, dropping his voice even lower as Mrs. Weasley mopped her brow with her scarf before returning to the attack, "so we're running it as a mail - order service at the moment. We put advertisements in the Daily Prophet last week."

"All thanks to you, mate," said George. "But don't worry . . . Mum hasn't got a clue. She won't read the Daily Prophet anymore, 'cause of it telling lies about you and Dumbledore."

Harry grinned. He had forced the Weasley twins to take the thousand - Galleon prize money he had won in the Triwizard Tournament to help them realize their ambition to open a joke shop, but he was still glad to know that his part in furthering their plans was unknown to Mrs. Weasley, who did not think that running a joke shop was a suitable career for two of her sons.

The de - doxying of 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; they hung limp and damp from the intensive spraying; unconscious doxies lay crammed in the bucket at the foot of them beside a bowl of their black eggs, at which Crookshanks was now sniffing and Fred and George were shooting covetous looks.

"I think we'll tackle those after lunch." Mrs. Weasley pointed at the dusty glass-fronted cabinets standing on either side of the mantelpiece. They were crammed with an odd assortment of objects: a selection of rusty daggers, claws, a coiled snakeskin, a number of tarnished silver boxes inscribed with languages Harry could not understand and, least pleasant of all, an ornate crystal bottle with a large opal set into the stopper, full of what Harry was quite sure was blood.

The clanging doorbell rang again. Everyone looked at Mrs. Weasley.

"Stay here," she said firmly, snatching up the bag of rats as Mrs. Black's screeches started up again from down below.

"I'll bring up some sandwiches." She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her. At once, everyone dashed over to the window to look down onto the doorstep. They could see the top of an unkempt gingery head and a stack of precariously balanced cauldrons.

"Mundungus!" said Hermione. "What's he brought all those cauldrons for?"

"Probably looking for a safe place to keep them," said Harry.

"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 again.

"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," said George. "I could sneak upstairs and get a pair —" But at that precise moment, there was an explosion of sound from downstairs that rendered Extendable Ears quite unnecessary. All of them could hear exactly what Mrs. Weasley was shouting at the top of her voice.

"WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!"

"I don't think we'll need the extendable ears after all." Tasmin joked with a wince at the woman's loud screeching. Fred snickered smirked slightly before speaking once more,

"I love hearing Mum shouting at someone else," said Fred, with a satisfied smile on his face 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," said George, 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, a house - elf edged into the room. Except for the filthy rag tied like a loincloth around its middle, it was completely naked. It looked very old. Its skin seemed to be several times too big for it and though it was bald like all house - elves, there was a quantity of white hair growing out of its large, batlike ears. Its eyes were a bloodshot and watery gray, and its fleshy nose was large and rather snoutlike.

The elf took absolutely no notice of Harry and the rest. Acting as though it could not see them, it shuffled hunchbacked, slowly and doggedly, toward the far end of the room, muttering under its breath all the while in a hoarse, deep voice like a bullfrog's, ". . . 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 in her house, what would she say to old Kreacher, oh the shame of it, Mudbloods and Blood - traitors and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do . . ."

"Hello, Kreacher," said Fred very loudly, closing the door with a snap. The house - elf froze in his tracks, stopped muttering, and then 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?" said George. "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." He finished.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not. The elf straightened up, eyeing them all very malevolently, and apparently convinced that they could not 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," answered Tasmin tentatively. "Harry Potter." She clarified.

Kreacher's pale eyes widened and he muttered faster and more furiously than ever. "The no - good blood - traitor 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 that!" said Ron and Ginny together, very angrily.

"It doesn't matter you two, it's fine." She whispered. "Besides, as Hermione said he's not in his right mind, he doesn't know what he's —"

"— Don't kid yourself, Tasmin, he knows exactly what he's saying," said Fred, eyeing Kreacher with a great amount of dislike.

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 that boy who stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it —"

"— Don't we all, Kreacher." said Fred.

"What do you want anyway?" Asked George impatiently.

Kreacher's huge eyes darted onto George.

"Kreacher is cleaning." He said evasively.

"A likely story." said a rather sudden voice behind Harry, so sudden it made all occupants jump.

Sirius had come back; he was glowering at the elf from the doorway. The noise in the hall had abated; perhaps Mrs. Weasley and Mundungus had moved their argument down into 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," Demanded Sirius rather impatiently. "Now, what are you up to?" He asked with

"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," said Kreacher, 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 and said, "Whatever Master says," then 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," said Sirius 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," said the elf, 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," said Sirius, 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."

It seemed that Kreacher did not dare disobey a direct order; nevertheless, the look he gave Sirius as he shuffled out past him was redolent of deepest loathing and he 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!" Threatened Sirius irritably, and he slammed the door shut on the elf.

"Sirius, he's not right in the head," said Hermione pleadingly, "I don't think he realizes we can hear him."

"He's been alone too long," said Sirius, "taking mad orders from my mother's portrait and talking to himself, but he was always a foul little even in my younger years —"

"— If you just set him free," said Hermione hopefully, "maybe —"

"— We can't set him free, he knows too much about the Order," said Sirius 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, where the tapestry Kreacher had been trying to protect hung the length of the wall. Harry and the others followed.The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though doxies had gnawed it in places; nevertheless, the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show them a sprawling family tree dating back (as far as Harry could tell) to the Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read:

THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK TOUJOURS PUR

Looking upon it, he noticed a certain member wasn't on there. "You're not on it!" said Harry.

"Oh I was. I used to be right there." said Sirius while pointing at a small, round, charred hole in the tapestry, that looked rather like a cigarette burn. "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?" Harry questioned. "Where did you go?"

"Your dad's." At that statement, Harry noticed the way his Godfather's lit up slightly at the mention of his late best friend.

"Your grandparents were really rather good about it, said I was welcome whenever I liked. I got a place of my own after a while, My uncle Alphard left me quite a bit of money. He's been burnt of too actually." Sirius continued while pointing to yet another small and round charred mark on the tapestry.

"But . . . why did you . . . ?"

"Leave?" Sirius finished rather bitterly.

"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, at the name REGULUS BLACK. A date of death (some fifteen years previously) followed the date of birth.

"He was a year younger than me," said Sirius, "and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded."

"But he died," said Harry.

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Stupid idiot . . . he joined the Death Eaters when he was just sixteen years old."

"You're kidding!"

"Come on, Harry, haven't you seen enough of this house to tell what kind of wizards my family were?" said Sirius 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 purebloods in charge. They weren't alone either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colors, 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.

"Oh no," said Sirius. "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 of service or death."

"Lunch!" said Mrs. Weasley's voice. She was holding her wand high in front of her, balancing a huge tray loaded with sandwiches and cake on its tip. She was very red in the face and still looked angry. All of the children present in the room immediately rushed out of the room eager to finally eat after all of the cleaning they had just done. Sirius, however, stayed back, noticing his godson's lingering gaze, he motioned for him to go downstairs. "Go on, I'll be there in a minute." He had said.

Hesitantly, Harry too left the room to join everybody else downstairs.

After hearing Harry's fleeting footsteps downstairs, he gave the room one last hate - filled lingering gaze, particularly the tapestry he despised so much, and slammed the room door tightly. Already going off to deal with his mother's dreadful shrieks and screams.

BEAUTIFUL GIF MADE BY sporadicstarsx

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