Chapter Seven
As the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, the weather outside grew colder and the nights grew longer. The Trips were in and out of the house, being very secretive about where they were always going, and making Remus and Molly nervous out of fear that someone would find out where they were coming from; Sirius just seemed jealous. He sulked more and sought refuge alone in his mother's room with Buckbeak, locking the door and not even answering it for Angie.
'Let him be, Sissy. He'll get over it,' Remus had told her one night at dinner. It was just the two of them, James, and Lily. Angie had been griping all day about how childish her husband had been being recently.
'Oh, I'm not stopping him, by any means, Remy, but he needs to understand that those kids can't be contained for very long without a riot starting. He wasn't there to help me raise them and see their personalities develop, and that's really no one's fault, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't understand how they can be. They're like Marauder clones all bundled into three people and if they're kept inside too long they think they'll spontaneously combust or something and –'
A loud bang resounded somewhere above them, seemingly coming from the front hall, cutting Angie's sentence short. Everyone looked up, Remus, Lily and James drawing their wands. Angie was the first to creep towards the door leading up into the hallway.
'Shh,' she motioned to everyone behind her before quietly opening the door and leading the way stealthily upstairs.
Once in the hall, they stepped softly towards the foyer where the door could be heard sealing itself shut again, along with the wailing and screeching of Mrs Black's portrait and all the other portraits of her relatives.
Sirius came barrelling downstairs, wand drawn and almost ran full tilt into Angie and Remus.
'What the hell's going on down here?'
They all turned towards the door and saw that the troll's leg umbrella stand had been knocked over and rolled across the floor; someone dressed in deep plum robes was hastily trying to pick up the contents of the umbrella stand.
'I'm so, so, so sorry, you guys,' they whined.
'Tonks,' Remus sighed, sounding relieved and exasperated at the same time. He rushed forward to help her pick up the remaining contents of the stand.
Sirius went to walk towards his mother's screaming and shrieking portrait but Angie held up her hand and stepped towards the painting.
'Mom! Shut up!' she screamed at the witch in the painting who stopped clawing and shrieking, looking down at her.
'Angella! My dear, these – people,' she spat, 'have taken over my noble house!'
'I understand, Mom. But please, let me handle it,' Angie replied and pulled the curtains back over the picture frame.
The hall was eerily quiet now; Sirius had stunned all the other portraits and they had stopped wailing. When Angie turned back around, everyone but Sirius was staring at her, mouths agape, in mingled shock, awe, and slight-admiration.
Angie shrugged with a slightly-embarrassed grin as she walked back towards the kitchen door, gently pushing past everyone. 'She always liked me, for some reason,' was all she said; Remus shook his head and Sirius rolled his eyes sarcastically. Tonks was beaming.
Sirius decided to join everyone in the kitchen, and was glad he did afterwards; he and Remus and James got a lot of catching-up done over dinner. Angie and Tonks and Lily amused themselves by watching and listening to the boys' antics, roaring with laughter all the while.
After they'd all finished eating and cleaning up, James and Lily retired to the room they'd been given to go to sleep and, soon after, Angie saw Remus and Tonks heading up the stairs together, hand in hand. She smiled softly to herself at the sight; she hadn't ever thought of her brother as thinking well enough of himself to show affection for a woman, but she was glad he was now, and even more happy that it was Tonks. She let out a chuckle at the thought that, if they were to marry, her brother would also be her second cousin by marriage and she would be Sirius's second cousin by marriage.
'What was that laugh for, love?' asked Sirius looking admiringly smugly at as they made their way slowly towards the door and up the stairs.
Angie shook her head. 'Nothing.' She didn't think Remus would appreciate it too much if she told Sirius that he was seeing Sirius' cousin before he had the chance to tell him himself.
Angie slept in the next morning; when she eventually got up, it was almost midday and the only other person in the house was Sirius.
'Where'd everyone go?' she asked as she bustled around the kitchen making herself a cup of tea.
Sirius looked at her rather grumpily with an incredulous look on his face and grunted in reply before turning back to his newspaper.
Angie rolled her eyes. 'I wouldn't be so stick-up-the-ass, if I were you, dear.'
'And why is that?' he asked sarcastically, still hiding behind his paper.
'Because. The kids will be getting out for break soon and the whole house will be swarming with people and noise and I'd be enjoying the quiet time I have while I can –'
'Exactly. You like the quiet, Angella. I'm a Marauder.'
Angie nodded slightly. 'Ah, well, I guess you're right.' She sipped her tea and let him read his Prophet in peace, laughing and shaking his head every now and again.
'I really don't understand why you still read that garbage, Puppy.'
'It's always good to know what the other side is saying – keeps us informed.'
The day went by rather quickly, with neither sight nor sound of hide or hair of anyone else. Angie retired early that night to read before she fell asleep. Around one in the morning, she woke up to find that Sirius still hadn't come to bed. Putting on her dressing gown, she searched the house for him before heading down to the kitchen. When she opened the door, she found the Weasley children, Harry, and Sirius sitting around the table, butterbeers in front of them, looking shell-shocked.
'What's happened?' she whispered in Sirius' ear, not wanting to disturb the others.
'Arthur's been attacked on duty. We're waiting to hear from Molly,' he whispered back, not looking at her.
Angie nodded, now looking a bit shocked herself. She sat down at the other end of the table after getting herself a drink, waiting on tenterhooks with the rest.
After a few hours passing of no sound but the chinking of bottles on wood, Mrs Weasley came into the kitchen looking flustered. Everyone looked up at her expectantly, a few of the kids standing up quickly.
'He's going to be all right. They've got him at St Mungo's now. We can all go see him tomorrow.' She made her way over to Harry and gave him an emotional, rib-cracking hug. 'If it weren't for you, we might have lost him, Harry. Thank you so much,' she said through sobs and tears.
That morning, Angie awoke to the sound of Sirius humming carols and Harry and the Weasleys bustling around getting ready to visit Mr Weasley at the hospital. Once she got down to the kitchen, she found her three children sitting at the opposite end of the table, crowded around a far corner, whispering excitedly.
'And what are you three so happy about?' she asked conversationally, making herself a cup of tea.
'We've finished!' Doro proclaimed, sitting back in his chair with his ankles crossed on top of the table; Sirius walked in, winked at his oldest, and chuckled to himself; Angie shook her head.
Within minutes the foyer was eerily quiet, as Harry, the Weasleys, Moody, Tonks, and Kingsley had left for St Mungo's. Sirius came into the kitchen, still humming 'God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs' in a creepily-joyous way, shortly followed by very disheveled-looking James and Lily, who were still wiping sleep from their eyes.
'W-where's ev-everyone ga-gone?' James yawned.
'Left for St Mungo's to go visit Arthur. He was attacked last night,' Angie answered quietly, receiving shocked looks from James and Lily.
'Molly says he's going to be fine, Prongs. It'll be alright,' Sirius commented, sitting in his usual position of heels-on-the-table-chair-on-only-its-two-back-legs at the head of the table and shook open his Daily Prophet as Angie sat a steaming cup of tea in front of him with a bowl of hot cereal.
She bustled around serving everyone else hot tea and cereal, putting vessels of milk, sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon in the middle of the table before tying an apron she had found in the back pantry around her waist and getting out an old rag and a bucket of hot water. When she began to scrub the counters, sink, and the end of the table that wasn't being used, Sirius chuckled and shook his head while James gawked at her like a dangerous escaped animal from some exotic zoo.
'What are you doing?' he asked, awestruck.
'Cleaning,' Angie replied simply.
'What?'
'Cleaning, James. Perhaps you've heard of it. Most people do it to their houses because they like them to be, well, clean, and to look nice.'
James looked taken aback; Sirius and Lily chuckled.
'Well, yeah, I know what cleaning is, but why are you doing it like that?'
'Because she can't do magic, Prongs. Don't you remember?' piped up Sirius before taking a sip of his tea. He received a smack in the face with the wet rag Angie was holding as she walked around his chair for his remark.
'I can, too, produce magic; and magic that none of you could fathom doing, I just can't do wizardry. There is a difference.'
Sirius, James, and the Trips continued to watch Angie clean, while Lily eventually got up and, finding another rag in the pantry, began to help. A few hours later, they were still sitting there, watching the women clean the Muggle way, when everyone who had left walked in for lunch – or rather, walked through the kitchen door, stumbled a few paces, and finally froze with mouths agape, causing those behind them to bump into them before looking to see what was causing the traffic jam.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who had arrived in time to go see Mr Weasley, were at the front-most of the queue and Ron was the first to find his voice.
'Bloody hell,' was all he could manage.
'Well, not exactly,' was Angie's over-the-shoulder reply, which warranted a bark-like laugh from Sirius, a chuckle from James, who stepped up to his son to do some, no doubt long-awaited, sizing up and comparing, and a stern look from Lily who gave Harry a tearful wink and a smile before resuming attempting to scrub off some mould from the counter.
Moody stumped his way forward, no doubt having seen everything from behind everyone with his magical eye; Angella grumbled.
'What's going on here?' he snapped.
'We're cleaning, Alastor. Well, Lily and I are. It seems everyone else is having fun with their gawk-fest.' She tried to keep her tone level and as least-sarcastic as possible, but found it exceptionally difficult.
Moody grunted. 'I meant with...with...them!' He pointed shakily at Lily and James with a gnarled finger.
'Oh, that. Well, you'll have to take that up with Dumbledore. I don't have all of the particulars. Suffice it to say, Moody, that there are two more like me now.' She allowed herself a pleased little smirk before tossing her rag in the bucket, drying her hands, removing her apron, and exiting the kitchen saying something about going to read in the drawing room.
A/N: So very, very, very, very, veryveryveryveryvery sorry it took me soooooo long to update. Finicky muse . Anyway, next chappie we'll see how Harry takes James' and Lily's return and a happy reunion scene, the whole shabang. Review, please, lovies, and you'll be my favourite-est for ever and ever and ever!