Back to Number Twelve

A few days later Hermione sat on her patio furniture on her back-garden porch with Ginny, they were having drinks,

"You're so lucky to have a place of your own." Ginny was saying,

"Thanks, it's pretty great." Hermione said,

"I wish I could move out and live somewhere with Harry, but I'm not sure about finding a place." said Ginny,

"Well, Harry makes good money as an auror and I'm guessing that you make quite a lot per Quidditch match." Hermione told her,

"Yeah, I do." said Ginny,

"Great, then you can probably afford a place of your own, besides, it's not as though that many bills have to be paid, you need light, use Lumos, you need some water, use Aguamenti, you need some heat, use Incendio, and so on and so on." Hermione explained,

"Yeah, I guess it won't be that hard." said Ginny who through a stick for Leontes to go and fetch, "You have quite a lot of pets."

"Yeah, I suppose I do, but not as big animals as Harry has." Hermione said,

"What do you mean, between us we have Snuffles and Arnold?" asked Ginny,

"Yeah, but Harry is the legal owner of Buckbeak and, by extension, Clarabelle and Rusty." Hermione explained,

"Yes, I suppose." Ginny thought,

"Anyway, you should go and ask Harry about the whole moving situation, he'll probably be on board." said Hermione,

"Okay, I will" said Ginny, taking a sip from her butterbeer.

"I talked to Harry." Ginny was once again saying the next day.

"And…?" Hermione wondered, "What did he say?"

"He said that he'd be happy to move as long as I was sure and he said that looking for a place would be no problem." Ginny recalled,

"Why not?" asked Hermione,

"Because, he owns number twelve Grimmauld Place, doesn't he, Sirius left it to him in the will along with Buckbeak." said Ginny,

"Yeah, but, I would have thought that that would bring back too many bad memories." Hermione pointed out,

"That's what I thought too, but he said that he wanted to remember Sirius as he was in life, not after death, and where better to do that than in his house, mind you, it will have to be thoroughly cleaned and dusted and we will have to get rid of all of those animals and creatures living in it, but once that's all sorted we should move straight in." Ginny exclaimed happily, "though speaking of all of those creatures and cleaning, Mum's coming down with us on the weekend to do an inspection for us and we could use some help, wink, wink, nudge, nudge." urged Ginny,

"Yes, me and Ron will be there." Hermione conceded,

"Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you." Ginny squealed before giving Hermione a hug.

That weekend, Hermione, Ginny, Harry, Mrs. Weasley and a reluctant Ron went down to Grimmauld Place. They saw number twelve and knew that none of the muggles walking by could, it had once been the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, it wasn't now that Voldemort had been defeated, Hermione knew that there would probably be less items in there than the last time she went because Mundungus Fletcher had the annoying habit of stealing things and selling them.

The five of them walked in,

"Oh, this place is filthy, we'll have to give it a good scrub." said Mrs. Weasley upon entering. They walked down the narrow corridor until they came to a place with a door in front of them and a staircase beside them, Hermione was slightly disgusted by all of the house elf heads that were on the walls but she didn't say anything. They entered the dining room and sat down around the table, "Okay, you four stay hear, I'll go and have a look round." said Mrs. Weasley who left the room and closed the door behind her.

"So, this place seems nice, you two sure about living here?" Ron asked, Harry and Ginny both nodded,

"The main problem is that portrait of Walburga." said Harry, Walburga Black was Sirius's prejudice mother whose portrait they could not take down,

"Is there not a way to undo tat charm she put on it?" asked Ginny,

"No," said Hermione, "That's why they call it a permanent sticking charm"

"Well, you know, we don't have Tonks to trip up on the troll foot umbrella stand anymore, maybe, if you be quiet around her, she'll shut up." said Ron,

"Yeah, maybe." said Harry,

"Maybe we can deafen her." suggested Ginny,

"What?" asked Hermione,

"Well, there must be a spell that makes you deaf or maybe we could sound proof her or something." Ginny though.

"We'll come back to it." said Hermioine,

"Do you think mum'll find anything too bad?" asked Ron; they heard a scream from upstairs and a distant cry of,

"That is disgusting." from Mrs. Weasley,

"I think that maybe she might." said Hermione.

The four of them kept on chatting until Mrs. Weasley returned looking a bit roughed up,

"Okay," she said, "I found: doxies, pixies, fairies, puffskeins, nifflers, mokes, knarls, imps, and a flobberworm, and that's just so far." said Mrs. Weasley,

"Right then," said Ginny, "Let's get to work."

They started with the pixies, they were bright blue and flew around the room, they pulled there hair and one stole Harry's glasses, Hermione pulled out her wand and said,

"Immobulus." and the pixies around her froze where they were; the rest of them did the same which meant that they could easily pluck the pixies from the air and shove them in a sack, Harry retrieved his glasses and put them back on. Molly tied up the sack and started a pile in the kitchen.

They then moved on to the room with the puffskeins, they weren't running around the room like Hermione expected them to be, they were under the sofa, and dead.

"Oh, that stinks!" exclaimed Ron,

"Okay," said Molly, she pulled out a sheet and asked Harry and Ron to move the sofa off of the puffskeins' bodies. Hermione got her wand and said,

"Depulso." and all of the custard coloured fur balls rolled onto the sheet, Mrs. Weasley took each corner and tied them up,

"Wingardium Leviosa." said Harry and the sheet-made sack of puffskeins hovered in the air and Ginny got her wand and said,

"Incendio." the sack set on fire and the bodies burned. Everyone in the room went quiet until the sack was all burned up and the fire disappeared.

"What do we do about that smell though?" asked Ron,

"Orchideous." said Mrs. Weasley, and flowers appeared all over the room making it smell of roses.

Next they went for the nifflers, there were three of them in the room, they were climbing on mantels trying to get to candle sticks or trying to get to the goblets on the table, they were fluffy, black and long snouted.

"How do we get rid of them?" asked Ginny,

"I have an idea." said Harry, he grabbed a candle stick, wiped off the dust to make it shiny (which made all of the nifflers turn their heads to look at it; they were attracted to shiny things) and shoved it in a large sack, all of the nifflers walked into the sack.

"How do we stop them from moving?" asked Ron,

"Petrificus Totalus." said Hermione and the nifflers went rigid in the sack,

"Shall we move on then?" asked Ginny,

"No," said Mrs. Weasley, "They'll probably have a burrow somewhere with litter, ah ha, there." Mrs. Weasley pointed at a hole in the floor in the far corner of the room. Ginny went over to it,

"Looks like they've been living between the floor and the ceiling underneath the floorboards, I'll try this," she got her wand, "Accio niffler babies." and six baby nifflers came zooming out of the hole, Ron through another candle stick into the sack and they all walked into it,

"Petrificus Totalus." said Harry and the baby nifflers went rigid and Mrs. Weasley tied up the sack, she added it to the pixies in the kitchen.

They then decided to tackle the mokes. They walked in to find some long silver-green lizards crawling around, as soon as the five of them entered the room, the mokes all shrank to the size of the pixies,

"How do we get them if they can just shrink?" asked Ron,

"They're tricky." said Mrs. Weasley,

"Well, we could just grow them again.' said Ginny,

"What?" asked Harry, Ginny pointed at a tiny moke with her wand and said,

"Engorgio." the moke grew larger than it was when they entered the room, it was shocked and Ginny used this to rush the sack over it. They did this to all of the mokes and used the full-body-bind curse to make them stop moving or shrinking and Mrs. Weasley tied up the sack, tight; she added it to the pile in the kitchen and soon returned.

They next found the imps, these were not hard, Mrs. Weasley simply did what was to be done with the pixies, pulled out her wand and said,

"Immobulus." and the little brown bodies stopped nibbling at ankles and knocking items over (one of them had pushed Ron over) and they were easily picked up and stuffed into the sack. They too were put in the kitchen by Mrs. Weasley.

They next found knarls running around a room. They looked a lot like hedgehogs, some of them weren't running around and were dead on the floor. They started by sweeping all of the dead ones into the sack. Some of them rolled into balls and rolled around the room madly, Mrs. Weasley temporarily vacated the room and returned with some owl treats,

"What are you going to do with those?" asked Ron,

"You'll see." she said, she then pointed her wand in the sack and created flowers inside it like she had in the room with the puffskeins. She then laid down the owl treats and all of the knarls scurried to it, they stared, confused and then looked angry, they all went to the flowers and started to attack them, Mrs. Weasley then tied up the sack.

"What did you do?" asked Harry,

"Simple, when you leave some food out for a knarl, they get suspicious because they think that you're trying to lure them into a trap, they then pull up that persons flower beds, hence, flowers in the sack." Mrs. Weasley explained,

"Impressive." said Hermione truthfully.

They next found a room with greenery in it,

"The fairies are in the bushes." said Mrs. Weasley,

"Okay, I know what to do." said Hermione, "I just need someone to set the bushes on fire and I'll take it from there." Hermione instructed,

"Okay.' they said, Harry, Ron and Ginny all emitted fire from there wands and ignited the bushes, they contained the fire away from anything structural. All of the fairies flew out of the bushes; they fluttered their insect-like wings and started to emit multi-coloured puffs of smoke. Hermione, wand at the ready, said,

"Glacius." an ice cold wind flew out of Hermione's wand along with snow flakes and ice, the fairies went blue and soon were frozen inside a large sheet of ice, "Reducto." the ice shattered and the fairies were now shards of ice on the floor, the others fire jets of water out of their wands and put out the bush fires.

"What do we do about those shards of ice?" asked Ginny,

"Wingardium Leviosa." said Mrs. Weasley and the shards of ice rose and Mrs. Weasley forced them to fly out of the window.

They then took care of the flobberworm which was very disgusting; it was squirting mucus from one end,

"Diffindo." said Ron, and the worm was severed in two, Mrs. Weasley then waved her wand and, without speaking, caused the flobberworm to disintegrate. She then magicked the broom tom sweep up the mucus and used,

"Aguamenti" to wash it off.

"Okay, good work everyone, just the doxies to go now." Mrs. Weasley told them, "I saved them for last because of how tricky they are." She then went downstairs and returned with five spray bottles and five vials of liquid, "Okay, I found Doxy poison and some antidote in the kitchen cupboards." she handed them a spray bottle each and a vial each. They entered the room cautiously; Mrs. Weasley moved the wardrobe and doxies flew out. They were fairy-like in appearance apart from the thick black hairs and the eight limbs, when one came near to Hermione she sprayed some poison in its face, a few good sprays and it was dead, she saw that everybody else was doing the same. Ron got bitten on the arm, Hermione sprayed the doxy that did it, it died, and Hermione fed Ron some antidote, finally all of them were dead, Mrs. Weasley swept them into a sack and they all started to walk down the stairs.

They all walked past a set of closed curtains that suddenly flew open and Walburga screamed,

"MUDBLOODS, BLOOD TRAITORS, FILTH, I MY HOUSE, AHHHHHH!" she screamed,

"Shut up you old trout!" yelled Ron,

"Silencio!" tried Ginny, but the spell failed, Hermione had always been good with charms and yelled,

"Silencio Maxima!" light gushed from Hermione's wand, Walburga continued to scream, but no sound came out,

"Just what you deserve you old bi-" started Ginny,

"Okay, said Hermione, maybe this will work now, Muffliato!" Hermione yelled, now Walburga couldn't speak or hear.

"Well, that takes care of that." said Mrs. Weasley, they went into the kitchen and Mrs. Weasley dumped the sack with the others,

"What will you do with them?" asked Hermione,

"Probably release them into the wild." Mrs. Weasley told her, "I'll probably come into the house for the next few days to make sure we don't get anything else, anyway, all of you, grab a feather duster, we still have the cleaning to get through."