Chapter 2: A Grim, Old Place

It's time.

The note had come from Dumbledore just two days after the Percy incident. Molly had been in a terrible state those two days; crying and stuff. Arthur, who had found out where Percy was staying, tried to convince Molly not to go see their son so soon. It would only end in heartbreak. Percy had slammed the door in his mother's face. This drove her deeper into her depression. But, Molly Weasley, strong and brave Molly Weasley, kept up a smile and unfazed façade for her family. Still, no matter how strong and brave she was, the façade cracked and Molly crumbled. No one dared mention Percy's name. Every time his name was mentioned, Molly cried and Arthur broke whatever he was holding. It seemed as if the Weasley family were well and truly rid of Percy.

But that was another problem for another day. Molly and Arthur were running around the Burrow like crazy, making preparations for some unknown trip. They told us nothing of what was happening or where we were going. Molly just said that the whole family, me included, would be spending the rest of the summer holiday somewhere else.

When I was in my third year at Hogwarts, my dad, "mass murderer" Sirius Black, broke into the school to protect his godson (and my best friend) Harry Potter. It was believed that my dad had been a supporter of the Dark wizard Voldemort and was the reason Harry's parents were killed. He was also sent to the prison Azkaban for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and twelve No-Maj people that same night. Harry, myself, and our two friends, Ron and Hermione, learned the truth. He was framed. The night we learned of his innocence was the night he promised me that we would be a family again. He told me that Harry and I could live with him in his house. Then, Peter Pettigrew (who had been in his rat Animagus form since that fateful night) escaped and the Dementors caught my dad. Harry and Hermione helped him escape and he had to go into hiding. No one but the people who were there that night in third year knew of Sirius Black's innocence. I had wondered, ever since dad mentioned it, if Harry and I would go live in his house. Being underage, we weren't allowed. Harry was sent back to his awful aunt and uncle's home and I stayed with the Tonks or the Weasley family. With a little coaxing from Arthur, I finally found out where we were going. We were to stay at my dad's childhood home. Boy, was I glad didn't have to live there.

The townhouses of Grimmauld Place in the London Borough of Islington used to be a place of luxury. The well-paved street was lit brightly by brand new light posts which surrounded an immaculate park in the middle of the square. This was a non-magic neighborhood, but a long time ago, one of my ancestors tricked a No-Maj out of his number twelve home and took it for himself. After a few well-placed protection charms, the residents believed that number twelve was accidentally forgotten and time moved on. As the years passed, the whole street fell into disrepair as nicer neighborhoods popped up around London. Grimmauld Square was left untouched, leaving the grass in the park unkempt and brown. The fronts of the houses were grimy and unwelcoming with broken windows, peeling paint, rusted gates, and piles of garbage were left rotting on the yellowed grass of the front lawns.

When my grandmother, Walburga Black, died, my dad inherited the house. He was letting Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore use 12 Grimmauld Place as the headquarters of a secret society called the Order of the Phoenix. Even more charms were set in place to keep the headquarters from curious eyes. Each member had to memorize a sort of password. This phrase would reveal the number twelve townhouse. All you had to do was think the phrase and the front door would appear to you, seemingly pushing houses eleven and thirteen out of the way. Fortunately, the non-magic residents wouldn't feel this happening.

The stone steps leading up the front door were worn and cracked. The door, painted a deep black, had seen better days. It looked like it was about to fall off the hinges and the door knocker's silver serpent was dull and scratched. It was missing a keyhole and a letterbox. When a member of the Order tapped their wand on the door, the series of locks would unlatch and the door would creak open. The long threshold was kept in almost total darkness despite the ornate serpent-shaped chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the gas lamps that lined the walls between crooked portraits. The wallpaper was peeling and the worn carpet gave off a damp rotting smell. Near the front door was a large umbrella stand (possibly made from a severed troll's leg) and not too far from that was a pair of moth-eaten curtains which hid a portrait of my late grandmother.

Further in, through a narrow staircase at the end of the entry hall, was the kitchen. It was a cavern of a room below the ground floor with what once was a very nice wooden floor. At one end of the kitchen, a large fireplace was filled with rusting pots and pans. A large wooden table ran down the center of the kitchen with mismatched chairs bookending it. There were several cabinets lining the walls that held cookware and china and a rather large pantry that held food and other small items. Across from the pantry was a smaller door that served as the bedroom for Kreacher, the Black family house-elf. His room had a small window so he could see into the kitchen when he was called for. Back in the entry hall, there were many doors. Through one door was the large dining room. All of the tables, chairs, dressers, and walls were made of deep mahogany. The dresser that lined the entire back wall held all of the Black family china, silver cutlery, and silk tablecloths and runners. The hanging light fixtures were silver and had snakes running down the cables into the light bowls. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and spider webs.

Back at the end of the entry hall, next to the stairs to the kitchen, was the stairs to the upper floors. This was decorated with a row of shrunken house-elf heads mounted on plaques. On the first landing, there were three rooms; a drawing room, a guest bedroom, and a bathroom. The drawing room was a large living area with long windows facing the front of the house. There were two sofas and two sitting chairs facing a fireplace at one end and at the other was a dusty grand piano and writing desk with a wooden chair that was missing a leg. The walls of the drawing room were covered by an enchanted tapestry of the Black Family Tree. The second floor had two guest bedrooms which hadn't been opened since the 1980's. The third floor had another two guest bedrooms and the master bedroom. The topmost landing (which was once an attic) had two bedrooms. These belonged to my dad and his younger brother Regulus. Regulus' room was always locked. No charm or spell could open the door. My dad suspected Kreacher, but he didn't care either way, so the room remained shut off to us. My dad's room, however, was exactly how I imagined a rebellious teen's room would look. While the whole house was colored in deep greens, greys, and blacks, dad's room was decorated in Gryffindor colors and banners supporting the Quidditch team. There were pictures plastered to the wall with a sticking enchantment of bikini-clad women and motorcycles. Above the bed headboard was a moving photograph of the Marauders. Peter Pettigrew had been recently scratched out of the picture.

This house was my dad's ancestral home, and by blood, mine as well. He loathed being there. Because my dad hated 12 Grimmauld Place, I did too. The moment I set foot inside, I thought the place should have been condemned. So much hate and anger hung in the air. It was so stifling that you could choke. I was glad I didn't have to be locked up inside all day and night like my dad and Buckbeak (who had taken up residence in the master bedroom). I don't know how dad survived it for so long. Just like the name suggested, it was a grim, old place.

It was my godfather, Remus Lupin, who greeted us when we entered. He was looking shabby and pale in the face. His scars seemed deeper and more prominent. The full moon had been a few days earlier. Remus had quietly greeted the Weasley family and I, telling us not to make too much noise in the hall. When Ron asked why, Remus responded that we didn't want to wake anything up. My friend and I shared a stunned look. Remus quickly led us to the back of the hall. As we shuffled along the dusty floor, Ginny screamed. A mouse had scurried from one end of the floor to the other. Ginny was about to apologize, but her words were drowned by an earsplitting screech.

"Filth! Scum! Dirty blood traitors in my house! Be gone! How dare you befoul the house of my great fathers –"

Remus scurried back to the screeching, trying to pull curtains over the noise. My curiosity had gotten the better of me. It was the most unpleasant looking portrait of a woman I had ever seen. She was practically frothing at the mouth and her eyes were wide and murderous. Her face was thin and yellowed from the age of the painting. The Weasley children complained as other portraits began yelling too, filling the hall with screaming.

"Shut up, you old hag," a voice roared.

As I stepped closer, the familiar woman's eyes landed on me. Her face contorted in anger once again. "You," she screeched even louder than before. I jumped. Remus was still struggling with the curtains that wouldn't close. "Abomination! Shame of my flesh!"

"SHUT – UP!" The voice from before lunged forward and helped Remus wrangle the curtains shut. The woman's screeching died and there was silence in the hall again. The voice had belonged to a tall, thin man. He swept his dark hair out of his face and grinned. "Cora, my dear," my dad greeted warmly. "I see you've met your grandmother."

"My –"

"Grandmother. Yeah," dad winced. He rubbed the back of his neck. "My lovely mother. Think she put a Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of the canvas. Can't get it down."

We both chuckled. Then I launched myself into his un-expecting arms. I waited for a hug that, for some reason, never came. Instead, I was given a slight rub on the back. Shuffling alerted us to the sound of the Weasley family being herded up the stairs. When I stepped away from my dad, I saw how tired he really looked.

"So – this is your home?"

Dad placed a hand on my shoulder and led me up some steps to the first floor. I saw Ginny rummaging through her trunk in a guest bedroom. But dad led me through an arch that became a drawing room. "It is," his voice echoed a little in the cavernous room. "I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters. It made me feel useful somehow."

I noticed how bitter he sounded. He pulled out his wand and lit a fire in the grand fireplace that had seen better days. I kept myself from grimacing when he flopped down on one of the sofas and a cloud of dust rose in the air. He patted the spot next to him and I joined him in the dust cloud. The silence wasn't exactly uncomfortable as I glanced around the room. There were faces staring at me. I realized they weaved through a network of branches on a tapestry that floated over the back wall. The tapestry looked old and faded; something had probably gnawed at it in places. Gold thread embroidered names and dates under each face that looked a little like me and my dad. They were the faces of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

"Had a good summer so far?"

"It's only been a week, but yeah," I smiled shyly, looking away from the faces on the wall. "I can't complain. I have the Weasleys' and now I'm –"

"I didn't want you to come here."

"What," I frowned. "Why?"

"This place holds no happy memories for me," dad sighed heavily. "I promised you a home, Cora. This is not a home; it's a cage."

"But I'm here now. That's all that matters, right? A home doesn't have to be four walls and a roof. A home is where the people you care about are; where your family is."

For the first time, a small grin graced my dad's face. "You sound just like your mother," he said in a dreamy voice.

"Who are all of these people," I asked after another moment of silence.

Dad clicked his tongue. "Well, I wouldn't call them family…"

I looked around the room for his face. I followed each branch but was unable to find his, "I don't see you."

"You wouldn't," he replied. Without looking over his shoulder, dad pointed to a spot on the tapestry that had been blackened. It covered the whole face. "I was there. Your sweet old grandmother blasted me off the tree after I ran away from home. Kreacher – you'll meet the menace – is quite fond of reminding me about that."

"From the way you said all that, I'm not surprised to hear you ran away."

"I had enough," he shrugged. He finally looked over his shoulder to the spot where his young face would have been. His eyes swept around the room the way mine had, taking in each face. "I hated the whole lot of them; my pure-blood maniac parents with their entitled ways…my idiotic younger brother who was too spineless to reject their ways – that's him next to me."

At the bottom of the unfinished tapestry was the face of a teenage boy. My face screwed up in thought as I stood up to get a closer look. I felt like I had seen him somewhere before. His features were sharper than my dad's; his nose more prominent, his hair a bit lackluster. But, according to the tapestry, Regulus Black had died before I was born.

"What happened to him," I asked softly, unsure how my dad would react.

"Stupid idiot," he whispered as he stood by my side. "Joined the Death Eaters."

"He doesn't look like the type," I commented, my nose almost pressed against the old-smelling tapestry. Dad snorted. "Was he killed by an Auror?"

Dad snorted again, "Killed by Voldemort. Or on his orders, I don't know. Regulus was not important enough to be killed by him in person. I didn't find out what happened until after he'd been dead a few months. Got in too far…panicked…tried to back out. You don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort, you know. It's lifetime of service or death."

"You know, I went looking for information on mom's family," dad turned and looked at me fully. There was some sort of sadness in his eyes. "There's nothing on them. They're all gone. But this…" I turned to look at the elaborate Black family tree. "This is the whole of your family. My family. I don't know who any of these people are."

"There's Phineas Nigellus Black," dad nudged me, pointing to a face far up from his own. "Least popular headmaster Hogwarts ever had…that pudgy woman over there is Araminta Melifula – cousin of my mother's – tried to make Muggle-hunting legal through a Ministry Bill…Aunt Elladora who started that wonderful tradition of beheading house-elves. You see, my dear, you don't want to know who these people are."

Dad kept talking about some distant relatives, but I only had my eyes on one. On the same line as my dad and uncle was the face and name of Bellatrix Lestrange. Her face looked young and full; the way she must have looked before getting thrown in Azkaban. Her inky black hair was wildly curly like mine, she had dark shark-like eyes, her nose was pointy and slightly upturned like most of the Black family, and her jawline was sharp. Neville was right. I looked a lot like her.

"I can't believe she's –"

"She is not my family," dad snapped. "None of them are. You shouldn't know relatives like her!"

"I'm sorry," I backed away quickly. "I didn't mean – I don't want to know them! I'm surprised, that's all."

"No, don't apologize," dad muttered. "You just want to know where you come from. There's no fault in that." Dad tapped on the scorched face next to her, gaining my attention again. Between Bellatrix and Narcissa was Andromeda. Her full face and half of her name were completely gone. There was no branch attaching her to Ted or to their daughter; in fact, they were missing completely. It was just like how neither I nor my mother were on the tapestry. "The ones like her – like me – we're the halfway decent types."

I looked from Andi's name to Narcissa's. She was linked to Lucius Malfoy and together they led to Draco. I made a face, "I hate that kid."

Dad laughed out loud, "We are all related somehow. If sons and daughters only marry pure families, the choices are limited. You see, Molly may be your godmother, but we are cousins by marriage. Arthur is a second cousin once removed, or something like that."

"No way," I exclaimed, searching for them on the tapestry.

"No point in looking for them here. If ever a family was a bunch of blood traitors – it's the Weasley clan."

"Well, they are something, aren't they?" Dad had clasped his hands behind his back. I noticed he started bouncing a bit as he looked down at me with a large grin. "What?"

"Speaking of the Weasleys' –" My eyes widened. "You never told me how your date was."

"What date," my voice sounded squeaky.

"Oh no, you aren't getting around this," he smirked. "Harry's told me –"

I suddenly felt angry. I knew my dad wrote to Harry more often than me. I knew he had more to be concerned about with Harry in the Triwizard Tournament last year. But what made me upset was that my dad was getting information about my life from Harry when he knew he could very well write to me personally and ask. I was his blood! I was his only daughter! Didn't that mean something to him?

"I don't see how it's Harry's business to tell you about my love life," I grit my teeth.

"Whoa, just a minute there," dad held up his hands in defense. "I didn't say Harry said anything about a love life. You said that. Harry just told me you had been on a date."

"Oh…" I gulped.

Dad's eyes suddenly narrowed as he crossed his arms over his chest, "So who is Fred?"

At that moment, Fred stuck his head into the drawing room. A cute grin was plastered on his face. "Mum said to come down for some supper," he told us. Before he disappeared, Fred winked at me…in front of my dad…who looked amused.

"Wait up, Fred," I called, running out to join him in the entry way. I did not want to be in the room when my dad realized that that wink meant something more.

As we started down the stairs, it occurred to me that I had just confirmed to my dad who he was asking about. Dad shouted excitedly after us as he made the connection. I tripped down the rest of the stairs, dust and cobwebs trailing after me.

As the hot summer dragged on, Molly had us painstakingly cleaning every little part of the old townhouse. Ron, Ginny, Fred, George, and I were able to pick up little tidbits about the Order. Members would come and go often, whispering secrets in the ears of other Order members. Fred and George, who had smuggled in a batch of their Extendable Ears, would have us all listen in on member only meetings. These meetings were to discuss things that the adults didn't want us to hear, obviously. Ron and I had caught Dumbledore twice since we had been at 12 Grimmauld Place. Together, we had implored our headmaster to tell Harry where we were and what was happening. As if he were in a rush, Dumbledore brushed our plea aside then made us swear we wouldn't tell Harry anything. Ron and I promised, including Hermione in on the pledge as well, and we hadn't seen or heard from Dumbledore since.

We had been allowed to send Harry short letters, however. Molly had to look over them to make sure there was nothing written about the Order or headquarters. This was all just in case our letters went astray. I despised most of what I wrote to my friend: "Being kept busy but I can't give you details now…" "So much is happening and I'll tell you when I see you…" But when were we going to see him? No one seemed too bothered to tell me or Ron a precise date. When Hermione arrived, we convinced her to try and get the information out of Molly. Obviously she failed at that task because Molly stopped talking to the three of us.

My dad seemed to be the only one who'd spare us the little information we could get. He and I had been getting along splendidly since I arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place. When Molly assigned me a room to clean, dad would sit with me and listen to my tales about my life before Hogwarts and in return he'd tell me stories about his years at the school. I'd never get any cleaning done because I'd become too enraptured by the infamous Marauders. Sometimes, Remus would even add his commentary which led to differing accounts on how certain events happened. There was also the time that dad tried to have me order the family house-elf, Kreacher, around. Since dad's face was blasted off the family tree and I wasn't on it, he wanted to test whether or not the horrible little thing would listen to me. When I tried to get him to bring me lunch, the beast glared at me and walked away, muttering how I was a disgrace to the Black name. I did not get my lunch that day. Kreacher was, however, annoyingly around all the time whenever Fred and I found a moment alone. Since he was of age, Fred would Apparate into whichever room I was in and lock the door. Kreacher would appear a few minutes later. I knew this was my dad's doing. It became a little game that Fred and I found we liked playing; how long could we spend alone without the little beast or an Order member popping their heads in on us.

With summer coming to a close, I thought I wouldn't get to see Harry until we boarded the Hogwarts Express. His letters were getting angrier and shorter from the lack of information on our part. I tried to not let it bother me but it was obvious my friend was in pain. After a few days of silence on his end, I would finally get my wish to see Harry.