Harry's trial had just blown over, and everyone was sitting at the dinner table, exhausted by the day's excitement, and probably by last night's patrolling duty. Molly's delicious dinner was the focus of everyone's attention. Like everyone else, Sirius fell on the food like a starving man. Soon, after the dinner was cleared everyone was just sitting there, chatting happily, when they heard a loud scream from upstairs. Instinctively, Moody's wand was out, and the grisly old auror, looked as though he would charge upstairs. Most of their faces had blanched; they had sent the children upstairs because they needed to discuss a few details. And God alone knows what horrors laid in the depths of this 'hellhole', in Sirius' words.
"Perhaps it was the boggart?" Mrs Weasley suggested weakly. Moody nodded, and stood up.
Rushing upstairs, they arrived at a corridor where there were several rooms, but most of which had already fallen into disuse. Typical of this house, it was very dark, and dusty, and there was only one source of lighting; a gothic lamp in the middle of it casted sinister shadows on the neighbouring walls. Most of the doors looked identical; they were painted a very dark green, and the doorknobs looked disturbingly like serpents, coiled and ready to strike. All in all, it was a very unpleasant place, and most of them shuddered a little.
Listening carefully, Sirius seemed to pick up the sound of shuffling somewhere, for he hurtled along the corridor, Moody hot on his heels. Idly, Tonks wondered why Sirius' face had turned so dark, and he was scowling furiously as he marched up, overtaking even Moody in his zeal.
Muttering angrily under his breath, he swore. "If they found something stupid in that prat's room, I going to…" An unintelligible string of curses followed. As he laid one pale hand on the cool doorknob, he glared at the pompous little sign the door; Do not enter without the express permission of Regulus Arcturus Black.
The silly little thing had annoyed him endlessly because honestly, did he think a sign would keep him out of the room? Heavens forbid! But he knew that his brother was up to his eyeballs in Dark Arts, and so he was wary to enter his room now. It had been sixteen years since he last set foot in the house, or seen his brother; he had no way of knowing what sort of defences the git would have set up to keep people out. He hoped it was only a boggart, because if it was a spell gone wrong…
Wrenching open the door, he walked into the room and observed the scene, unable to suppress both his worry and his amusement. Harry was standing at the bedpost, eyes wide with shock and face drained of colour. The little Weasley girl, (Jenny? Ginny?)was standing at the corner, her expression of horror echoed on Granger's face. It must have been either one of them who screamed then. And then there were the three Weasley boys, Harry's best friend, and the twins, who obscured his view of the bed.
It was odd; what on earth did that idiot brother of his put on his bed? He would have been horrified by the family crest that had been painted carefully on the wall, but then again, they were looking at the bed, not the wall behind it. Shrugging, he approached them, confident that it couldn't be too bad, because no on was dead yet, and besides, the most of the Order was behind him. Unfortunately, things were not going the way he wanted them to.
On the dark green covers, pale and still as death, laid his most assuredly dead brother, Regulus Black.