AN:
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As the last two chapter, the work was mostly done by Winona, I swear it's like she's got a writing demon on her, she simply can't stop writing, and it's becoming scary believe me !
Sorry for the tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniest of the delays. Real life issues.
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Nalu & Winona
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That cloudy day when everyone in the house left, Susan wasn't feeling cheerful at all.
Mrs Weasley had led them all to the Floo after breakfast, and had planned to stay out for the good part of the day, in spite of the awful weather.
Hermione had, once again, tried to stay home, but neither Susan nor Molly Weasley would hear of it. Molly didn't want to let Hermione lose the only trip before September first, and Susan agreed with her. Besides, she had a letter to give Hannah and Hermione was the perfect 'owl' for the task. She was sure the Weasley matron had the best intentions at heart, but wouldn't trust her with her private correspondence.
They had just departed and Susan felt bored already.
She had tried to read books, but she only had school related ones since her room had been burned to ashes and the Library was still off-limits.
She then busied herself with homework. The essays were flowing out wonderfully in such a quiet environment though, and soon enough she had no more homework to do. 'So much for Hermione's schedule' she thought, looking wide eyed at the big pile of parchments she had done in the sole morning.
It was then that another of the shrieks which kept coming from the Elves room was heard again.
Susan would usually just ignore it, used as she was to the creepy sounds of the old house, but the shrieks kept coming and coming. Annoyed, curious and with nothing to do, the girl decided to 'investigate'. She just hoped the Elves wouldn't pop from nowhere and chase her with a pique or something. Once Hermione told her Ron had been chased by an enchanted wooden spoon for an entire morning, and none in the house knew who was the Enchanter. Even the Weasley twins, who had always been pranksters at heart, admired the good job but denied any involvement in the prank.
She got tip toes to the Elves room, and pushed the door open. The room was exactly how she remembered it. The beheaded, soppy elves smiling and staring into nothing, the nearly absent light and the shrieks coming from the drape on the wall. Wait, drape?
She didn't remember that the first time she had been in, but yet she had been interrupted rather rudely by Kreacher. Truth to be told, she was snooping in his room. She raised her hand, to take off the velvet which was covering the wall, but hesitated. She didn't even have her wand with her, it wasn't very wise to go and touch the first thing she found, especially a screaming one. The curiosity was too much though, so after a quick check she was alone, she took down the drape.
It was a portrait.
An enormous, life-sized canvas portraying a grey haired woman in a deep green gown. The dress was certainly made of some precious fabric, and the woman had a charm around her that expressed noblesse. The woman's face had nothing noble, though. She was rolling her eyes, screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs.
"Get me out now! I demand it! YOU Blood traitors, traitors of my fathers!"
Susan gaped. She could see why the portrait had been moved from the posh and polished frames in the Hallway, but that still didn't explain why she was in the Elves' room. Besides, she was pretty sure the woman could have just walked out of the frame and screamed from any other canvas in the house, so why sticking to this one?
The woman apparently paid no mind to her, concentrated as she was on shrieking pointlessly at the ceiling. As if someone could hear her, Susan thought. She was pretty sure Lord Black wherever he was silenced his part of the House, as Mrs Weasley used to 'pierce ears' with those lungs of her almost daily and the Weasley Twins used to make such a noise when they stopped by.
"What are you staring at, you silly girl?" said a raspy voice.
Susan jumped and looked at the canvas. The portrait had stopped dead, and was looking at her. She approached the frame, on the little tag, a silvery plaque read 'Walburga Black'.
"I'm sorry, I just… You're Lady Black?" escaped her mouth before she could censure herself. She put her hands on her mouth, ready to be lashed out by the hideous portrait.
Former Lady Black stared at Susan and scrutinized her up and down many times, before sniffing on a handkerchief. She coughed once twice and then composed itself.
"And who would you be to pose questions in my house?" she said annoyed "I am Lady Black and as such it is I who demands"
Susan stared incredulous. This woman seemed lucid and sane, nothing like the screaming she had heard before.
"I…" she gulped "I am Susan Bones".
Walburga Black stared at her "Bones, Bones, Bones… they're a Light family you know that?" she said, all the same pleased she was apparently talking to a Pureblood.
"Of course we're a light family, my Aunt works for the-"
Lady Black was aghast, and rudely interrupted her "A working woman, where has this world come to! Women need to be proper wives, just like my dear niece Narcissa! Blood traitors, the lot of you" she then declared, and lost any interest in Susan.
Susan paled. Narcissa as in Narcissa Malfoy? "Uh… Lady Black?"
"Yes" She said sharply, still not looking at her.
"Is this… Malfoy Manor?" asked Susan, uncertainly. She was pretty sure the Malfoys were aligned with Voldemort and definitely not cooperating with Weasleys. Mrs Weasley would have never even stepped into Malfoy Manor willingly.
Lady Black turned at stared at her, as if evaluating her sanity level.
"Silly girl, are you daft?" she exclaimed, eyebrows raised. "I said this is my house. This is the Ancient and Noble house of Black, you silly girl. Honestly, what were you thinking. Giving my House to those… French. Pureblood, but FRENCH" The portrait seemed to shudder. "And now leave me, I do not wish to speak with you."
Susan blinked. The woman apparently suffered of severe mood swings. A second before she was talking about proper witches, a second later she was in no mood to talk? She had started the conversation in the first place!
"Of course" she said, agreeing with the portrait. She could not wait to leave either, before Kreacher showed up "I'll leave you to your screaming, maybe Lord Black will hear you from there".
The portrait blinked "I have no idea of what ever you're talking about, girl. I most certainly wasn't screaming and most certainly not to Lord Black. My dearest grandson" she sniffed. "Such a kind heart, always helping who needs it. Nothing like his traitor of a father I must say" she rambled "When he first came here I thought… and then… I said I don't want to talk to you" She said suddenly "And now leave me".
Susan shrugged. The woman was insane, no doubt about that. She still had to meet someone in the house who was not lashing out suddenly on her. She then realized the Elf must have taken from this woman. They both had the tendency to stare off space and say anything it came to their mind, maybe been alone too much time to realize they were in presence of others.
"And don't forget to cover me!" she heard from behind. Of course, once the canvas was properly covered, the shrieks started again.
DBDBDBDBDBDB
The Weasley had come home late in the evening, looking cheerful. Mrs Weasley was very relieved to be back it seemed.
Hermione gave her a full debriefing of everything she could have missed. Many shops were closed since last year, but recently it had become a Ghost Town. Hermione and the others had, however, had a fantastic day in spite of the weather. She even had given Hannah the letter, something Susan was very glad to hear.
They had a very feisty dinner in the cramped kitchen, as many Order Members had stopped by.
DBDBDBDBDB
The meeting with Former Lady Black had formed dozens and dozens of questions in Susan's mind, the first of which being 'Who was this Lord Black?'. Try as she might, she still couldn't access the library to check a Family tree, Lady Black was terribly uncooperative and the 'adults' were very evasive.
She had tried to pry it from the conversations going between Mrs Weasley and Mrs. Lupin in the evenings, when Mrs. Lupin came out of the Master's wing.
Mrs. Weasley would be asking if he was 'coping', the other would shake her head sympathetically. Molly would then sigh the usual 'He's so young! He shouldn't be a Head of House at this age, poor dear' only to get close her mouth abruptly every time she noticed Susan was near.
This only generated more doubts and questions, which none would or could answer to.
Ronald kept saying he would never want to meet a Slytherin, and always scampered out of the room rather quickly when the topic was brought up, lest a stray spoon hit him. Ginny didn't know, she just knew Lord Black went to Hogwarts, as a group of guards had been escorting him to Grimmauld Place from Platform nine and three quarters last year. Hermione didn't know either, but tried to make sensible assumptions. First one, he was a Slytherin. That much was obvious, considering the house décor. Second, he was their age or one year older at most, as he went to Hogwarts last year. Ron always joked about the age fact, saying that he was probably a first year midget too scared to come down, but the voice was never confirmed nor denied by anyone.
Susan had asked about Former Lord Black, and was answered that Sirius Black had been wrongly sent to Azkaban for a miscarriage of justice, escaped, and got killed into an Order Mission by Rastaban Lestrange.
The days went by and by the end of August Susan was being eaten by the curiosity. It wasn't a matter of life and death of course, but she couldn't forget about it either. She needed to know, as Ravenclaw as it sounded. Fortunately, Hermione seemed to think along the same lines, and together they had started looking for possible 'candidates'.
The letter sent to Hannah received an answer fairly quickly. Aunt Amelia went home one day carrying a package the Abbotts had forwarded to the DMLE, since Grimmauld Place was not reachable via Owl. It contained a series of books Susan had asked her friend, including some novels and one big book about Pureblood Genealogies through the ages.
It was a lengthy explanatory book starting from Pureblood definition, covering mottos, Coats of Arms, members and traditions. Susan was disappointed in finding that the book wasn't self updating, and it just went as far as proclaiming 'Sirius Black' current Head of House. It had, however, a nicely drawn genealogy tree, so they could start from there.
The tree was huge, linking almost every Pureblood family to each other. Susan was surprised not to find herself there, but noticed that her great-great-grandmother Delanice and her husband had been blasted off the tree for protecting Muggle rights. They also found Mrs Lupin on the tree, blasted off along with her mother Andromeda Tonks for marrying a Muggleborn wizard, and the Weasleys.
They silently assumed the blasted names were out of the hereditary line, and started covering the 'good' lines. They started from the ended lines, and got to the lines who still had heirs. Then they took of the candidates too old to attend Hogwarts. It remained a couple of girls from the Avery line, Ernie MacMillan who was however excluded as his parents were still alive, the Parkinson girl who couldn't inherit for the same reason, a not named boy because he was not born at the time of the book edition and Draco Malfoy. Ron felt very sick when he heard he was somehow related to Malfoy, and more so when he was told that there was the very remote chance they were living under the same roof.
Mrs. Lupin eased their tensions. Malfoy didn't inherit due to , as she called her, 'the last prank of an old Marauder'. Apparently Sirius Black had tricked the hereditary line and made some far relative the Unique and Universal Heir.
That destroyed completely any hope of finding Lord Black, and either Hermione and Susan reluctantly had to give up.
DBDB
She got lost, again. She couldn't fathom why she got lost in the first place really. She knew her way around very well after all, she almost knew the Staircase by heart since she came here, and yet she managed to get lost. At least, she thought so. The Hallway was completely new to her though. The walls were still green, but there were large windows and a much more pleasant air. The snake lamps had been replaced, and there were even fresh flowers on a big wooden drawer.
She entered the first room, confused, trying to get back to where she came from.
Luck wasn't on her side, she thought, cursing herself and her luck for that. She was into a big room. It was very spacious, and had a comfortable looking sofa, a little reading table on which was a precious porcelain vase with fresh flowers and a chair. She approached the table and looked at the walls.
It was the tree! An updated genealogy tree was carved, no, sewed in the walls. Pictures of the family members with their names stood proudly on the wall, as real as Lady Black's canvas. She smiled and looked excitedly at the wall, the big mystery was about to be solved at last. She found the main branch of the tree, and searched with trepidation Walburga or Sirius' names.
Walburga and Orion, Regulus, a blast which was due to be Sirius and there it was. The golden line which linked Sirius to…
…She blinked. Once, twice, thrice, and again. It wasn't what she expected to find. She expected some tragic history of a long lost child, maybe born from a secret relationship, or some muggleborn who Lord Black had made inherit just to spite his mother. She wouldn't have blamed him after all, she had only met the portrait but the woman didn't seem pleasant. At the very least insane, then maybe crazy and then some.
No, it definitely wasn't. It made sense though, after all they were third cousins three times removed or something like that…
"And you're here because…?" said a surprised voice behind her.
She whirled around and gasped.
The green eyes of Harry James Potter, Lord Black, were staring at her, eyebrows raised and lips pursed.
Oh dear.
