"Now stay still everyone, while I give us a bit of light in here,"

Ophelia's ears pricked up as she heard the dulcet tones of a gruff voice waft through the open door. She cocked her head, confused. The meeting would not be over yet; the only other explanation was that he had arrived.

"No, there's a meeting on. You'll have to wait upstairs I'm afraid!"

The more friendly voice of Molly Weasley followed that of Mad-eye Moody. Ophelia rolled her eyes. Molly Weasley was by far the most molly-coddling woman she had ever had the misfortune to meet. At least she hadn't tried fussing on Ophelia yet. Ophelia smiled as she thought of her own imaginary reaction. Her daydream was interrupted by the sound of feet on stairs and a conversation she couldn't decipher. Ophelia shot up quickly, closing the door she was behind, save for a tiny gap, which she pressed her eye against. She caught a glimpse of a skinny, bespeckled, messy haired boy before he entered the room directly opposite her own, leaving the door open.

"Harry! You're here!"

Ophelia rolled her eyes again, listening to a high pitched voice ramble into what sounded like a well prepared monologue. The girl, who had spoken, Hermione Granger, had a tendency towards hysteria at times; Ophelia thought. She shook the thought from her head, as she concentrated on the conversation again. She wanted to focus on the newcomer. She wished she'd stolen some Extendable Ears from one of the Weasleys, an invention she found quite ingenious, not that she'd give them the satisfaction of knowing that.

"Well have you been attacked by dementors?" A new voice sounded, which Ophelia deduced to be Harry Potter.

"No- Thats why the order was tailing you, Dumbledore said-"

"Yeah well I had to take care of myself didn't I?" He sounded as if he was trying hard not to shout out in anger. Ophelia laughed quietly to herself. If it had been her, she would have expressed her opinion as loud as humanly possible. Maybe even with a few jinxes added. But that was Ophelia. Rash. Reckless. Wild. And, she supposed, people did not usually hex their friends.

"Not that I'd know," She murmured quietly.

Ophelia heard shouting from the opposite room and smiled slightly. It looked like this kid decided to give into his anger after all. By the sounds of it, he had a bit of an ego problem.

Harry continued shouting. Not being interested in the ravings of an adolescent ego maniac, Ophelia grabbed the book she had previously been reading from her bed, and sat on the floor next to the door. She was engrossed, until she heard her own name spoken from the bedroom opposite hers.

"Have you seen Ophelia?" The voice sounded like one of the Weasley twins.

"No. She's probably in her room, like always. Why do you care, anyway?" A girl's voice, presumably Ginny Weasley, answered.

"Yeah, why do you care?" Ophelia thought to herself. All summer she had shown no interest in talking to the other teenagers of the house. Why would they want to know where she was?

"No reason." The twin shot back

"Who's Ophelia?" Asked the voice belonging to Harry Potter. "An Order member?"

There was a long pause

"No." said Ron Weasley awkwardly. "She's living here at headquarters..."

"Beating around the bush, ey?" Ophelia thought, smirking. She didn't suppose her father had told Harry about her existence.

"Yeah, but who is she?" Harry Potter asked again.

There was silence.

"Who is she?" Potter asked again.

"She's Sirius's kid Harry." Ginny said suddenly.

"What?" Potter said, confused. "Sirius doesn't have a kid! Who is she? Where did she come from? Why is she here?"

"How about one question at a time, Potter. And don't call me kid." Ophelia muttered. She did not take kindly to being patronised behind her own back.

"Well, it's kind of complicated. We don't really know the whole story. She's kind of quiet, you see. She doesn't really speak to anyone," Hermione tried to explain

"Arrogant, you mean!" Ron muttered. Ophelia raised her eyebrows.

"We've heard, the Order all thought she was dead. Even Sirius didn't know she was alive. The night that Sirius got arrested, Ophelia's mum went after him. But then, her mum got…well, she was there when Pettigrew escaped." Hermione was saying.

"Or you could say she got herself blown up." Ophelia thought.

"Well, the Order, the Ministry, and Sirius thought that Ophelia was with her mother, when…when it happened. Everyone thought she had died. But her Mum gave her aunt before she died, and her aunt well, she never told anyone Ophelia was alive. I don't' really know why."

"Because she was a paranoid old woman," Ophelia said to herself, smiling as she remembered her crazy aunt.

"And then, when she was twelve her aunt died, and apparently Ophelia just took care of herself. The Order found her because she was doing business with Mundungus Fletcher, and he let slip her name, and they found her and brought her here."

"To rot forever." Ophelia added under her breath. She cursed Dung for having such a large mouth. This old house was like a prison, and she didn't care for anyone in it, regardless if Sirius Black was her father. She'd lived her life since twelve years old not needing anyone to take care of her, and she didn't need some strangers trying to now. She slumped to the ground as she thought of the devastating fact that in September these people would be sending her to a boarding school. Ophelia couldn't remember ever being forced to stay in one place since her childhood, and the prospect of ten months stuck in a school, of all places, made her feel like a caged bird. If she could get out of it, she would.

The sound of Molly Weasley's footsteps on the stairs snapped her out of her reverie. She jumped on the bed and pretended to be engrossed in her book. She did not want the others to know she had listened to their conversation. She looked up innocently as Mrs Weasley opened her door.
"The meeting's over now, Ophelia. You can come down now. If you want, of course." She said, before exiting quickly to give a much warmer announcement to the next room. Ophelia smirked. The way Mrs Weasley spoke to her, you'd think she was afraid. The side-effects of living with criminals, she thought as she stood up.

She exited the room quickly, before Harry and the others left theirs. A meeting in the hallway would be a cause for conversation, something Ophelia neither needed nor wanted.

Dinner was always awkward for Ophelia. For the first few nights, the other residents of the house tried to engage her in conversation, but she mostly ignored their fruitless attempts, or else gave only one word answers. After a while, most of the others gave up on trying to hold a steady conversation with her. The only person who still tried was Lupin, who Ophelia annoyingly rather liked.

Her father had not tried.

His attitude confused Ophelia. He seemed to not care about her; he had only spoken to her a couple of times since she had arrived, and that was mostly to reprimand her for using magic. Sirius did ask a couple of questions regarding her upbringing but after that, he seemed indifferent about her presence there.

Tonight, Ophelia knew that dinner would be especially uncomfortable. Harry Potter's arrival had put the house in a state of frenzy for the past couple of days. She had heard that he had done illegal magic in front of a muggle, and was going to attend a hearing at the Ministry of Magic. Part of Ophelia felt sorry for the kid. Rule number one in criminal activity: Never get caught. Ophelia had always stuck to mostly magical places when she moved around. Mixed in with all the wizards and witches of age, she had never been detected in under-age magic – which was the least of her worries in her line of work. This Potter had a thing or two to learn.
Sirius had been especially agitated in the days before the boy's appearance. This, Ophelia thought, had been a major factor in his blissful ignorance of her, and she'd found herself resenting Harry Potter before she had even met him.

She walked sullenly into the kitchen, where Bill and Arthur Weasley were occupied over blueprints of some sort, Mundungus was asleep in a chair, and Sirius was talking with Lupin. They didn't notice her until she sat down next to Dung, and sighed loudly.

"Hello Ophelia" Lupin said, talking to her from across the table. "Why aren't you with the others?"

Sirius glanced at Ophelia before getting up and joining Bill and Arthur.
Ophelia frowned slightly before answering. She realised that he meant the Weasley children, Hermione Granger and now, Harry Potter. She shrugged.

"You say that like I'm always with them," She replied dryly.

"Well, it would be nice for you to meet Harry,"

"Well, I'm sure the others have told him everything they've guessed about me." She replied, raising an eyebrow at Remus knowingly.

Lupin was about to answer her when he was cut off by the sound of a woman raving. The portrait of her Grandmother had woken up again. The portrait had been hung up with a Permanent Sticking Charm, and no matter how Sirius tried, he could not remove it, and so Wallburga Black was free to screech her obejctions night and day. Ophelia had looked at the portrait once, and was ashamed to say it terrified her. The woman looked stark raving mad, and had slung a barrel of insults towards Ophelia, most of them mentioning her mother.

Sirius stood up abruptly, striding out of the room, closely followed by Lupin. Ophelia heard the sound of Sirius' shouts added to the ruckus.

Not really listening, Ophelia pulled her wand out of her pocket and started to make an empty goblet levitate for something to do. As she was making it do cartwheels down the table, the door opened and Sirius and Lupin returned, followed by Mrs Weasley, the twins, Ginny, Ron, Harry and Hermione.

"Ophelia," Sirius warned, when he found the source of the goblets gymnastic abilities.

Ophelia rolled her eyes before levitating the goblet as high as she could.

"Ophelia!" Sirius repeated. Now, most of the room glanced toward her

She stared at him before taking the charm off the goblet, allowing it to fall on the floor with a loud crash. Sirius glared at her before angrily sitting down on the other side to Mundungus.

Harry sat down next to him.

"Harry, this is Ophelia. She'll be starting Hogwarts with you this year." Sirius muttered, waving an arm in Ophelia's direction, but giving no further introduction.

"Hello," Harry Potter said, giving her a small smile.

Ophelia simply glanced up at him, and then back down to the table. Harry frowned.

"I'll need some help with dinner unless you want it at midnight!" Mrs Weasley proclaimed to the room.

Ophelia stood up, using this as an excuse out of a conversation with Harry. She heard Sirius talking about her to him as she walked toward the kitchen.

Mrs Weasley set her to stir the caldron over the fireplace. She could see Harry glancing up at her as he talked to Sirius. Evidently he was giving him an explanation. Mundungus, who had woken up, leaned in to join their discussion.

"I'm not that interesting..." Ophelia mused to herself as she stirred the stew. And she didn't think she was. In fact, being the daughter of an escaped convict was the most exciting thing about her, she thought.

Ophelia had never known her parents growing up. Until she was eleven, she had been raised by her aunt, quite a poor witch, who Ophelia thought was half mad.

Ophelia had never been allowed out of her sight, and because of her great aunt's paranoia, had been taught at home by her. Well, not really home, because Samantha and Ophelia Williams had lived in a room above the Leaky Caldron. Aunt Samantha had never answered Ophelia's questions about her father, and all she would say about her mother was that she had died in the war against Voldemort, and that her name was Sarah.

Ophelia had learnt not to ask questions about them from an early age, as it always resulted in an argument, and Ophelia hated arguing with her aunt. In fact, she had learnt more about her mother from the Order than she had from her aunt.

Ophelia couldn't remember much about the day Samantha died. It was almost as if she had blocked it out. She knew that she and her aunt had gone to a muggle store, and there had been a car, and then a muggle ambulance, and a hospital. She remembered running.

After her aunt's death, Tom, the landlord at the Leaky Caldron had been kind enough to let her stay in their room, in exchange for helping him out around the pub. It was an interesting place to work, as Ophelia had a knack for eavesdropping. She soon found out that the Leaky Caldron was a hotspot for petty thieves to drink away their earnings. She also found out that you can get almost any information out of a drunken criminal if you asked the right questions.

That was where she met Mundungus, and the two of them soon went into business together. Ophelia would find out about the goods, and Mundungus would "collect" them. Ophelia would then find a buyer and they would split the profits. Working with Mundungus soon gave her enough money to move out of her pub room and go into "business" full time. She had trusted Mundungus, as he was not a dark wizard, like so many others were. At least, she had trusted him until he had brought her to this prison.

"I think that's ready now, Ophelia." Mr Weasley said in her ear.
Ophelia jumped as she was brought out of her daydream.

"Sure." she muttered, turning off the flames with a discrete flick of her wand. She went and sat down next to Lupin, far away from her father and Harry, as plates were passed down the table.

"And then the gormless gargoyle buys all 'is own toads back orf me for a lot more'n what 'e paid in the first place!" Mundungus roared with laughter, in a discussion with Fred and George.

Ophelia's ears pricked up. Was he talking about the toads stolen from Warty Harris? Anger flushed her face as she put down her fork and looked toward Mundungus.

"You told me those toads got lost!" She cried down the table, outraged at Mundungus' double cross.

Mundungus looked up, guilty and surprised.

"Well, err; you see, the fing is-"

Ophelia cut across him. "I arranged that deal! Give me my cut!"

"Listen, Phee, err, they didn't, erm-,"

"How much did you get?" Ophelia shouted angrily.

"I think that's quite enough!" Mrs Weasley said loudly. Ophelia looked round. She hadn't realised that the whole room was now staring at her curiously, or that she had risen from her chair in her outrage. She sat down moodily.

"We don't need to hear about your crooked dealings at the dinner table!" Mrs Weasley continued.

Ophelia stabbed her dinner with her fork. "He owes me money." she muttered.

"Enough, Ophelia." said Sirius, loudly from down the table. She glared at him.

"Those toads were worth a lot of money, actually. Forgive me if I'm a little tetchy!" she said through clenched teeth.

"It doesn't matter anymore," He replied, a little quieter, anger still evident in his voice. "You don't need to do that sort of thing anymore. I've got enough money for both of us."

Ophelia stared. Her father, actually seeming to care about her? Her shock was soon replaced by frustration though. Didn't he realise, she could take care of herself? That she wouldn't rely solely on him? That she couldn't? She stood up from the table and walked out of the kitchen. She didn't care if she was being rude. She didn't even notice she was followed.