Chapter One
"Ginny, have you lost your mind?" Minerva McGonagall said sternly to her foster-daughter. "You can't be a servant."
"Of course I can." Ginny looked up, her bright eyes serious. "In fact, it's the only thing I can do."
"What about your quidditch?"
"D'you think the Harpies are hiring now? Or any team, for that matter? Minnie, no one wants to watch quidditch these days, let alone play it. I need to put my broom to better use."
Minerva sighed, looking across the room to where Ginny's broom was propped against the wall. An old Cleansweep, it was the only model Minerva had been able to afford for Ginny's seventeenth, and was well loved, gleaming with polish, the handle worn from years of use so that it fit perfectly into Ginny's palms.
She tried a different approach. "You're a war hero, Ginny. You deserve a better job than being a housemaid for one of the Twenty-Eight."
"Deserve, perhaps," Ginny agreed, "but unless you're a pureblood or an aristocrat — or both — there isn't an awful lot of choice."
Choices for an unknown halfblood with no connections, who had not even finished school, were indeed limited. And at twenty, Ginny felt she had been living off of Minerva's kindness for long enough: foster parents are only required to care for a child up until their eighteenth birthday, after all. Minerva already had her hands full with eleven-year-old Teddy, her latest foster child. His school supplies alone had almost emptied Minerva's bank account and Ginny was determined to find some way to replenish it.
"Don't worry, Minnie. It's not exactly regular housework. Apparently this place is full of dark artefacts which need to be removed, and if anyone's an expert on that sort of thing, it's me!"
"Ginny…"
"And I'll take my broom with me. So you see I will be absolutely fine!"
Ginny was of the opinion that anywhere one could fly a broomstick, one could be fine. Minerva was not too sure about this philosophy, but she tried to smile.
"If you would just wait for a better job to come along…"
"Like what, Minnie?" Ginny said softly, sitting back down beside Minerva on the couch. "Do you think some rich man on a Nimbus 3000 is going to come along and whisk me off to join an international quidditch team?"
Minerva sighed. "You really cannot be a servant, though, Ginny. What would Dean think?"
Ginny's brows furrowed briefly at the mention of her foster-brother and she bit her lip.
"He isn't here to worry about it, is he?"
"And what about Teddy? He barely tolerates school as it is; if he knew you were going to take a menial job he'd drop out to do the same."
Ginny paused to contemplate this. Though she and Dean had never been able to complete their final years at Hogwarts, both she and Minerva was adamant that Teddy should. Teddy, who adored the two of them and hated to be away from them for months at a time, had reluctantly agreed to attend Hogwarts on the condition that when he graduated, he and Ginny would both become famous quidditch players.
"The position is only for a few months, to prepare the house for the new earl. I should be back by the time school finishes, and I'll tell Teddy that I've gotten an apprenticeship at the quidditch stadium nearby. That should keep him happy."
She, clearly pleased with her own cunning.
"I was also thinking that I should cut my hair." She added, looking sideways at her foster-mother. "Housework is very dusty and it would be much easier to look after short hair."
But Minerva, having conceded the housemaid battle, would not allow another defeat. Glaring hard at Ginny, whose waist-length vermilion mane had become, to Minerva over the years, a symbol of hope and survival, she said: "Ginny, you know that I am very proud of you and that your worth is much greater than your looks. But over my dead body are you cutting your hair."
One week later, Ginny apparated to a spot just outside the grounds of the famous Black estate. It was a beautiful, clear day and Ginny took a moment to admire the scenery before heading towards the house. She had never experienced much of England; between Hogwarts and Minerva's house, Scotland had always been her home, and the serene heathland she saw now was both similar and alien to her: less wild and lost than Scotland, but the fields thick with hardy purple flowers felt familiar. She turned and looked down the road: in the distance, she could make out thatched roofs and a church steeple that indicated the village of Ottery St Catchpole. She even fancied she could hear the bells ringing.
Levitating her suitcase — her school trunk, filled now with her clothes and the muggle cleaning books — she picked up her broom with one hand, the small birdcage containing her owl Pigwidgeon with the other, and set off with determination down the long driveway.
"When serving food, one must always approach from the left — or is it the right?" Ginny quoted aloud one of the few pieces of etiquette she had gleaned from some unknown source. "Do housemaids ever serve food?" She asked Pig, who hooted forlornly. Around her, the grounds had shifted from rough weeds to trimmed grass; everywhere green and soft and pleasant. Trees rose up ahead of her, concealing the house from sight and casting long cool shadows on the drive. Though the gardens had clearly been neglected lately, they were still breathtaking, made even more fairytale-like by the wildflowers growing amok among the flowerbeds and the soft earthen piles of molehills dotting the lawns. Butterflies drifted drunkenly in the air ahead of Ginny and she stopped to watch a pair as they circled each other.
"Surely only footmen do that," she decided as she set off again. She looked at Pig again. Imagining that his hoots were part of a conversation she was having with him seemed to help calm the nerves she felt. "Now, can you remember if — oh my God."
She had passed through the trees and was now facing the house that waited behind them. Grimmauld Place rose starkly into the sky, the dark stone harsh against the lapis summer sky. There was no disguising the sorcery inherent in this building, with its gravity-defying spires and doors set into upper floors that led nowhere and the outer walls which flickered between opaque and rainbow-flecked glass and back as a cloud passed over the sun. In contrast to the heavily stylised upper floors, the sparse, raw architecture on the ground floor made it seem like the skeleton of the house was exposed. Despite the building's intimidating presence and the blatant dark magic it displayed, it was still beautiful. Ginny wanted to turn and flee.
Before she could, a door swung open and the building's soul flooded out, gliding towards her in the form of an ghostly pale owl. Or perhaps it was just a pet. She landed gracefully on Ginny's case, inspecting Ginny before turning her attention to Pig, who kept her distracted for a few moments as she puzzled to discern what, exactly, the tiny bird was. Ginny stroked the owl's plumage with two fingers until the owl indicated that she was prepared to take their friendship to the next level by alighting on Ginny's shoulder and nipping her ear gently.
"Stop that! Can't you tell I'm here for an interview? I need to look presentable." She craned away from the owl, gathering her skirts. The owl followed, hooting cheerfully as Ginny circled to the back of the house in search of the servants' entrance. Only when she began descending the steps to enter the servants' quarters did the owl stop, hovering in the air as if she had been enchanted not to enter. Perhaps she had; the snobbery of some purebloods never ceased to amaze Ginny, and the idea of casting a spell to keep one's pet from interacting with one's servants didn't seem too far a stretch.
"Just you and me again, Pig," She said as she placed a hand on the doorknob. "You ready?"
The owl looked at her with wide night-eyes.
"No, neither am I."
Waiting to interview Ginny were Hannah Abbott and Neville Longbottom. They were not expecting much and, in fact, would both have preferred not to take on anyone new. Most of the staff were new, hired by the earl because he had met them during the war and felt some kind of duty to ensure they had a stable income when they came out the other side of it. The exceptions to this rule were Neville and Hannah who, despite their class status, had been brought up alongside the earl, thus earning them the highest ranking positions among the household staff: that of housekeeper and butler (although Neville much preferred overseeing the garden to the workings of the house). Hannah was a blonde, pink-cheeked young woman, the very embodiment of welcoming, gifted in transfiguration, and eagled-eyed. She dealt with the big picture and negotiation, preferring leave the finer details to Neville. He was the ideal candidate for this: more introverted than Hannah, with an extraordinary memory for minutiae, and a slightly awkward manner exacerbated by his height which he had never felt comfortable at.
Neither of them were old enough to recall what Grimmauld Place had been like years ago, which was frankly a blessing because the house's current dilapidated state might then have been too much to take. Hannah and Neville did not pine for the days when there was a servant for every spell that needed casting and more besides, along with house-elves and under-gardeners and librarians and laundry maids, yet they still felt the loss. Despite — or perhaps because of — the Blacks' general predilection to agree with You Know Who, Grimmauld Place had lost many people to the two wars. First to go had been Lord Regulus, the younger son, and for many years no one had known what he did to try to destroy You Know Who. In the years between the two wars, the rest of the Black family had died quietly, without fuss, until only Lord Sirius remained. Then he, too, was lost during the second war. Below stairs: the former butler had been executed after You Know Who discovered he was a double agent; Dennis Creevey — who should have been at school taking his OWLs — was killed by a carelessly-aimed unforgivable during a night-raid; a girl named Susan had been attacked by a werewolf during the final battle. To fill this void, Neville persuaded Luna Lovegood to step into the cook's shoes which she did with some trepidation and a great deal of whimsy. Hannah tracked down Lavender Brown who had been attacked alongside Susan and bore her scars along with survivor's guilt, and begged her return to Grimmauld. And the earl sent young men and women ahead of him from the battlefield.
Even with this help, the sheer size of Grimmauld was almost too much for the staff to deal with. Lord Remus, Sirius' partner, and Lady Andromeda, Sirius' only surviving relative, attempted to ease the work load by cloistering themselves into one lonely turret, shutting the rest of the house, and the dark artefacts still lurking there, away from the world. Grimmauld Place grew cold and dusty, with rooms where not even the earl's owl Hedwig dared enter. When word came that the earl was to return, Hannah began mentally preparing for the task of selling the house while Neville started, discreetly, looking for positions that would allow him to continue caring for his elderly grandmother.
The only hope for the House of Black lay, not with a member of the family (of which there were precious few left), but with Lord Sirius' godson Harry Potter. The boy had put the entirety of his soul and a good deal else of himself into ending the war, risking his life so many times that Remus and Andromeda and Neville and Hannah, each of whom had scant few people left in their lives, had barely dared to hope that he might come out the other side intact. But though You Know Who had hit him with the killing curse, somehow, miraculously, he was still alive. People were calling him the chosen one, though to his friends and family this meant less than the fact that he was coming home.
But would he be home for good? Or was he only returning to see the house sold? Remembering the quiet, brave boy who had detested all that the House of Black stood for — toujours pur — the inhabitants of Grimmauld could only speculate. Harry's instructions sent ahead of his return had been equally vague: Grimmauld was to be brought out of the dark ages by removing every dark artefact and re-opening every room in the house. Apart from the staff that Harry himself sent, anyone that Neville or Hannah felt it necessary to employ were to be temporary staff only. The young woman that the pair were about to interview was to be one such temporary servant — given that she was up to task.
Ginny stood before them, twisting her wand nervously between her fingers, waiting for their verdict. As Neville and Hannah examined her, they were not disappointed, exactly, but certainly not encouraged. She was familiar to them, not from the world of housework where they both felt most comfortable, but from the realms of combat and bloodshed into which most people had been forced to enter. The stance which added inches to Ginny's average height; the determined set of her mouth as she faced her adversaries; her quick fingers drumming along the length of her wand, were all attributes which, while admirable, were not skills that could easily be adapted from battlefield to domestic work.
She was not all warrior, though: the parts of her that weren't perfectly suited to war were soft, tender, and far more eye-catching than housemaids ought to be. Her fawn eyes gleamed as if caught in a sunbeam though no natural light penetrated the room, and the core of her being, shrouded by protective armour, still emanated a zephyr aura capable of forgiving the world its hardness and faults. Though her hair was pulled back into a plait, lustrous Titian tendrils had escaped to dance around her face, which, like a Tiger Lily in full bloom, was dusted with pollen-like russet freckles.
"You are Virginia Booth?" Hannah said, glancing down at the girl's resumé.
"Yes."
"You have no previous experience of housework?"
"No, but I answered your advertisement because I have some experience dealing with dark artefacts."
"Yes, I can see that here." Hannah slid the paper across to Neville who noted the successful destruction of a Horcrux amongst Ginny's various achievements. He fought to keep his expression blank.
"I don't think you understand what the extent of your duties will be here," he said carefully. "In addition to removing dark artefacts from the house, Grimmauld Place is in dire need to refurbishment and cleaning before the earl returns. We won't be able to offer you formal training and you'll be expected to help anywhere in the house, or even in the gardens if necessary."
"I can do that." Ginny said resolutely. "I can."
"With your previous experience, Miss Booth," Hannah said, "You might do better in another line of employment. You're certainly qualified for a more regarded career."
"There is nothing else." Ginny said. Then as the silence stretched and Neville and Hannah exchanged a doubtful look, she added: "Please?"
Neville sighed and looked at Hannah, who nodded. It was only a temporary position.
"Very well," he said. "We'll take you."
She was given a bedroom in the attics, miles away from the ground floor and, it seemed, any other living creature. It was sparse and small, with a narrow bed, a small bedside-table and a wardrobe whose paintwork was peeling. Pig, released from his cage, flew happily around the room, perching on top of the wardrobe to survey his new kingdom. Sunlight streamed in from the window which had no curtains. A dark green dress, two white aprons and a white cap were hanging in the wardrobe, along with a velveteen indigo dress and a lace-edged apron to be worn for formal occasions.
Ginny unpacked quickly, resting her broom against the wall by the door and piling her books under the bedside table. Looking around her room, she became aware of how silent it was, and how very far from home and everyone she loved she was. Her vision suddenly blurred with tears and finding it hard to breathe properly, she went to the window, pushing it open. After a few steadying breaths, she felt almost normal again. From here, she could see the strange topography of the enchanted house's roof with it's gargoyles and skylights and magical wards. And the view beyond was charming. She could see, emerging from the treetops, a set of quidditch goalposts and to her left, if she leaned around the protrusion of her room, the village nestled in the hills, the church spire rising above the rest of the buildings. To her right the flower gardens faded gently into dense greenery lapping the edges of an aegean lake. Birds sang amongst the chimney-pots and she could smell apples from an orchard nearby.
Watching the clouds drift across the sky, Ginny decided to put everything she had into making the interiors of Grimmauld Place every bit as beautiful as the outside. She withdrew her head back into the room and pulled her green dress from the wardrobe. It fit fine, if a little tightly, but it would do. The apron and the cap fitted nicely, although Ginny couldn't help but feel that, for housework, the starched white fabric would be a hindrance more than a help.
Grimmauld Place's kitchen was a delightful place: with red-brick walls, the enormous, perpetually-lit fireplace and the long table where countless gourmet meals had been prepared, it was worlds away from the high-ceilinged, shadowy corridors of the main house. Standing at the table now distractedly kneading dough was Luna, a woman whose pale colouring made her look as if she belonged more to the afterlife than reality. She, along with Hannah and Neville, had grown up near to the Black estate and over the years had developed, in addition with numerous eccentric beliefs, an unexpected talent for cooking. In her short time working as chef at Grimmauld Place, the kitchen had changed from a heavily guarded area of the house to a warm, light-filled room where dreamcatchers hung from the rafters and all servants felt welcome to visit.
There were a number of servants in the kitchen when Ginny came downstairs. Beside Luna stood Lavender, the head housemaid, nursing a mug of tea and chatting idly with Luna. Resting an elbow on the flour-coated surface of the table, she smiled at her friend, the scar on her cheek stretching as she did so. Next to Lavender, the first footman Seamus had pulled up a chair and opposite him sat Parvati and Padma Patil, giggling as Seamus slid the sugar pot towards them. Colin, the second footman, sat at the end of the table, sipping his tea quietly, content to listen in on the others' conversations. Dobby, a house-elf freed by Lord Potter himself and who now worked for a modest salary amongst the other kitchen staff, was mixing the next batch of dough for Luna; Neville and Hannah hovered in the doorway, looking over some housekeeping costs; even Hagrid, who tended to the meagre remnants of the stables and owlery, had dropped in for a quick chat and a cuppa.
Lavender was the first to see Ginny; straightening up, she nudged Seamus, and he and the other servants slew around to greet the new servant.
"You must be Virginia." Lavender said.
"Ginny." She corrected, slipping into a chair beside Colin.
"Have some tea, why don't you?" Luna said. "It's my own brew." She continued as Ginny poured herself a cup. "I make it with dirigible plums."
"Made with what?" Ginny said, and took a sip of her tea before promptly choking on it. Colin thumped her on the back while Luna continued kneading, apparently unaware that anything was wrong. "It's very — um — interesting," Ginny said once she was able to speak.
"Thank you. The dirigible plum has many beneficial characteristics."
"But tasting good is not one of them." Seamus said in a low voice. Padma nodded, casting a sympathetic glance at Ginny.
"So," Ginny said after a moment, looking down at the undrinkable tea before her, "I don't suppose any of you like to play quidditch in your free time?"
This question was met by a collective blank stare which Ginny took to mean that not only did none of her new coworkers play quidditch, but also that free time was a thing unheard of here.
Somewhere between the servants' world — consisting of the tiny attics where they slept, and the maze of pantries and cellars where they worked and cooked and lived — was the house where the rest of society existed. There were rooms upon rooms, each shrouded in sheets and shut off from daylight by heavy drapes, their walls lined with portraits of haughty Black ancestors who looked sneeringly down on the servants as they passed, and containing cabinets filled with all manner of execrable curios. Here and there among the stygian chambers there were rooms which gave Ginny an indication of what the house might be, once they were finished with it: a library with bookcases reaching up into the high, vaulted ceiling, the books placed in loving order on the shelves and in some instances, inside birdcages or padlocked shut or, in the case of one particularly vocal volume, wrapped in fine grey silk; the portrait room where one art-loving Black had tracked down masterpieces and remastered the subjects with spells to make them walk and talk like wizarding portraits; the salon which the previous earl's husband and cousin tended to frequent, where music was always playing and fresh flowers sat in vases on every surface.
It was into this world that Ginny entered the next morning, and began to work.
She woke at half five, ate breakfast with the other servants — avoiding the dirigible plum jam that was Luna's one culinary failure (although she did not see it that way) — and, armed with her wand and a pair of curse-resistant gloves, followed Lavender and Colin to the library.
Once, the Library of Grimmauld Place had been famous. It housed rare and unique texts, ancient books of extinct spells and potions, and, high up on the back wall, one of only three known paintings of the great Merlin himself. Now, though, Merlin looked down disdainfully at the bookshelves, shrouded by black drapes and un-dusted for years. The writing tables and couches were in equal disrepair but the worst thing about the library was the number of dark artefacts which littered the bookshelves, shoved haphazardly out of sight by a previous Black who had wanted to make a good impression on the visiting Minister of Magic.
"Oh, hush!" Lavender said when, after she opened the library doors, every book with the capacity to speak had begun complaining loudly about the state of the room. "We'll get to you lot eventually. Ignore them," She said to Ginny. "I need you to get all those gizmos off of the shelves and bring them over here so we can dispose of them. Carefully!" Lavender added. "Use your gloves!"
So it was that Ginny spent the morning climbing up ladders, retrieving objects of potential mass destruction. Standing atop the ladder some thirty feet from the floor, she couldn't help but wish that whoever had wanted these things gone years ago had just done a proper job of it.
Then came the identification and disposal of the items. There was a grey, mummified object which might have been a hand of glory, though no one was willing to touch it with their bare hands to find out; a potion bottle giving off noxious fumes that caused severe nausea and vision to darken, even with the stopper just loosened; a deck of tarot cards that predicted death no matter how many times one selected a card. Inside a well-secured ring-box was a tiny sterling ring with a fiery opal jewel. Ginny looked at the jewel for too long and found herself hypnotised, coming close slipping the ring onto her finger without caring why it might be a bad idea. It was only Seamus' powerful disarming charm, knocking the ring from Ginny's hands, that prevented her from putting it on. When they inspected the ring later, they found a cache of poison deep within the opal.
By mid-afternoon, Ginny was bruised all over by artefacts that had fought back, and her head ached. But she had not complained, and now only the relatively simple task of cleaning the library remained. Moving a picture frame so that she could dust the mantelpiece, Ginny realised that she was looking at a photograph of the elusive earl.
The photo was of two men: one with traditional good looks and laugh lines around his eyes. He winked at Ginny, grinning rakishly. His arm was slung across the shoulders of a younger man, practically a boy, slender and dark. His eyes flickered towards the camera and then away, as if there was something more interesting just out of frame.
"That's Lord Sirius, the one who died." Lavender said, looking over Ginny's shoulder and pointing at the elder of the two men. "God, we all loved him! He knew how to have fun, even when things were bad."
"And this is the new earl?" Ginny asked.
"Yes, Sirius' godson. Harry."
"He looks… special. Unique." Ginny watched as Sirius leaned to speak in his godson's ear. The boy allowed a small smile to creep across his face and he looked directly into the camera — at Ginny — once again.
"He'd have to be, being the chosen one." Lavender said lightly.
On her fourth day at Grimmauld Place Ginny found that Neville, so likeable and kind-hearted, was related to a sharp-tongued and pedantic elderly woman with whom he shared a cottage in the stable block.
She had spent the morning in the scullery methodically washing, drying and polishing a set of burnished silver tableware, engraved with the Black family's crest. Then she had popped out to the gardens with a message for Hagrid, and as she crossed the stable-yard on her way back had heard the sound of china breaking. Investigating the source of the noise, Ginny encountered Neville's grandmother, sat up in bed with the remains of a teapot shattered on the floor beside her. Once a proud and active woman who had raised Neville alone, she was now bed-ridden and consequently stir-crazy.
"Who are you? Where's Neville? I need a new tea-set!" The old woman demanded.
"I am a housemaid, and Neville is busy at present but I can bring you another tea-set if you allow me."
When Neville came in to see his grandmother, noticing with apprehension that he was ten minutes later than he had promised to be, he found her absorbed in conversation with Ginny.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he began, but the old woman shushed him.
"Be quiet! We're telling war tales. I didn't always used to be useless and bed-ridden, you know," she added, to Ginny.
When Ginny had left, she asked again: "Who is that girl?"
"She told you, she's the new housemaid."
"Her? A housemaid? Don't be ridiculous."
She had been at Grimmauld Place for ten days before Ginny finally met a member of the family — the only surviving member of the Black family: Lady Andromeda Black. Ginny was instructed to take afternoon tea to Lady Andromeda.
"You have to be careful with her ladyship," Parvati, whose regular job this was, said to Ginny. "She doesn't like you to talk to her, and she can be sharp if you do anything wrong. If you hear classical music, leave the tray on the table and get out quick, 'cause she hates to be disturbed when she's listening to music."
Hearing the strident sounds of violins, Ginny paused outside Andromeda's room, preparing herself for the wrath she might face. As she opened the door, the music was overwhelmingly loud, eclipsing Ginny's other senses. She had never heard much classical music, but the emotion in such an old, wordless genre surprised her.
Lady Andromeda was listening to the music, eyes closed, and made no sign that she had heard Ginny enter. Treading softly so as not to disturb her, Ginny deposited the tea set on the table beside Andromeda's sofa. She turned to leave, but as she did so, the music changed, shifting into a haunting minor key. Clasping the tea tray to her chest, Ginny closed her eyes, immersing herself in this piece she had never heard before. Andromeda opened her eyes and saw the housemaid standing in the middle of the room, swaying slightly as if drunk on harmonies.
"What are you doing?"
"I didn't know that classical music could be like this," Ginny said, forgetting herself. "I thought it was stuffy and boring."
"Stuffy?" Andromeda repeated coolly.
"I was so wrong!" Ginny went on. "This is…" She shook her head wonderingly. "It's magic."
Andromeda eyed the girl. This would usually be the point where she would dismiss the girl for being unprofessional and overly-familiar, but something in the wide-eyed way she was listening to the music, the fact that she was hearing a piece which to Andromeda was as familiar as breathing, gave her pause.
"Muggles may not be good at many things, but one thing they do know is music." She said, and patted the space beside her. "Sit, listen with me."
"Oh, I can't! I'm a maid." Ginny said.
"Well, stay until the end, at least."
So Ginny stayed, sinking down onto the arm of the sofa.
"Are you a musician, my lady?"
"I wanted to be," Andromeda said with a sad shake of her head. "But when I was young, aristocratic ladies were expected to confine themselves to household charms and proper pureblood activities, like abusing house-elves." Her voice took on a bitter tone. "My husband played the piano. And I had hoped my daughter might have become a musician. But…"
"Not much call for pianists during a war, is there?" Ginny said softly.
Andromeda shook her head, and they lapsed into silence. Ginny stayed until the end of the piece, and to the end of the next one, and the next.
She returned to the kitchen some twenty minutes later, her cheeks red, biting her lip as she stood before Lavender, expecting remonstration. Instead she was greeted by the curious faces of the other housemaids.
"She shouted at you, then?" Parvati said. "I warned you she might."
"No, she didn't. She gave me a record." Ginny looked down at the vinyl disk in her hand, her expression somewhat perplexed as if she couldn't remember how she got it.
"How odd." Luna said. "There must be a secret message on it. Play it, why don't you? And have some tea."
Ginny, who had already come to appreciate Luna's tea — which really did have myriad beneficial characteristics — poured herself a cup and put the record on the player in the corner of the kitchen.
Two days later, Ginny encountered Lady Andromeda again, this time in the salon where the lady of the house was taking tea with Remus Lupin. Every member of staff at Grimmauld Place would have gladly lain down their lives for Mr Lupin. Less brash and more compassionate than his husband, with a lined and friendly face, no one who spoke to him would know how badly the loss of almost all his loved ones had affected him. In recent years, though, Remus had rarely left the house— in part unable to bear the sight of Grimmauld Place without Sirius' presence, and in part scared to face the light of the moon and what it might make him do.
When Ginny entered the room, the wireless in the corner was tuned to a quidditch match, and she crossed the room as slowly as possible, her ears tuned to the commentator's voice.
"Look, this is the one I was telling you about," Andromeda said as Ginny set the tray down. "Come here, Virginia."
"Yes," Mr Lupin said, regarding Ginny's face thoughtfully. "Yes, I think you're right. There is something familiar about her — but what?"
"That's what I can't figure out," said Andromeda. Ginny shifted from one foot to the other, wondering if she was dismissed or not. "I'm inclined to say she has the Malfoy nose, but of course that's not it."
Stifling a snort of derision at this remark, Ginny turned to look at the wireless. The Cannons were playing the Tornados and she cared about neither team, but it had been a long time since she had played and she missed it dearly. Remus noticed her interest and said: "Ah, you're a quidditch fan, I see."
"Who isn't?" She answered automatically.
"I am not." Lady Andromeda said, drawing herself up tall in her chair. Ginny flushed, stumbling over an apology, but Mr Lupin laughed.
"Don't listen to Meda. She likes scaring the servants. Do you play?"
"Chaser." She said with a small smile.
"I myself never really played, but an old friend of mine — the Earl's father, in fact — was a brilliant seeker."
"Like father like son." Andromeda said. "Thank you for the tea, Virginia."
This time, Ginny recognised the dismissal and as she left, Mr Lupin and Lady Black resumed their conversation.
"So, if it's not the Malfoy nose, then what is it?"
"I think it's simply the hair. Merlin knows we know enough redheads."
And thus day by day the staff worked to remove the darkness and disrepair from the house, encouraging pockets of enchantment to shine through until Grimmauld Place became inhabitable, its beauty surpassing the days of Blacks past. The windows were opened, allowing scented summer air to enter the rooms; Padma brought in vase after vase of flowers until they overflowed from every windowsill and fireplace. The cabinet of remembralls, polished to perfection by Ginny, stood in the drawing room, emitting the warm glow of firelight. The portraits hung straight; their occupants looking with satisfaction at their restored paintwork.
Finally, one evening in June, Ginny — who had that day removed a family of Grindylows from an upstairs bathroom, dusted and polished the enormous chandelier in the ballroom and changed the sheets on fifteen separate beds — stood at her open window in her tiny attic room and looked up at the stars and addressed the unknown earl:
"It's finished. You can come."
The next day, he did.
