This story will be the death of me...I'm just going to have to stop mentioning Mundungus or he's never gonna show up (Thought, really, will anyone miss him?), but he has to in the next chapter...cause, is there really anything else for me to manipulate before him? No, not really, unless I really want to drag the story, which I certainly do not. This chapter is just a tiny bit shorter than the others, cause the end just seemed like a good place to stop, and I'm tired, but wanted to give you guys an update this weekend... so, yeah. Hope you don't mind and enjoy the chapter!

"Filthy traitor! Back stabber! You swore to never say a word! Silence yourself!"

Miranda looked up the stairs woefully, "I thought that was you. I'm sorry, Burga, but I have to tell them."

"No!" The portrait screamed again.

A softer, younger version of the voice spoke, "Please, don't, Miranda. He doesn't need to know." In the middle of the stairs stood Walburga Black, exactly as she had looked in 1944, only she was silver in color and slightly transparent. "I beg of you, don't give away my secret now. I've kept it hidden for too long."

Miranda's anger got the best of her, "Why should I do anything for you? You locked me in a room and left me there!"

The beautiful ghost glared at her long lost friend, "I didn't have a choice, Miranda. He said it was the only way to keep you safe."

"I could have lived as your long lost cousin, we look enough alike."

"I know, and I said that, I offered that, but he said it wouldn't work. And then he offered me something I couldn't refuse." Walburga looked her friend in the eyes, trying to make her understand without making her say the words.

"He killed your mother for you, didn't he? He put her out of her misery of a slow and painful death." Miranda choked on a laugh, "I don't suppose I can be angry at you, can I? You locked me away, to keep me safe, so that your mother wouldn't have to suffer. It seems like the only one who lost anything was you."

Walburga nodded, looking down at her spectral hands, "Do you know why I'm in this form?" Miranda nodded, "I died when he did, and when my son was born and I had to stow him away, I had nothing. When you die, you return to the form that was most familiar. Usually, it's the state you were in when you died, but me..." She sighed and her breath came out in a frosty fog, "This was the last time I was ever really alive." She looked up the stairs with a sad smile, "The portrait was to keep you safe. Your father had me affix and curse it."

Miranda looked at Hermione, trying to see if she would put it together. The brown eyed girl met her gaze, "You said you hid your son away, after his father died? But Orion was alive and Sirius was always here."

Miranda smiled, "That's what she needs to tell you."

Walburga just blurted it out, "Orion is not Sirius' father."

Harry just stared at the ghost, who had clapped her hand over her own mouth, "What?"

"Sirius is a half blood." Miranda explained, "His father was a muggleborn." She looked to Remus, "That's who she was screaming about, Brennan was the name of Sirius' father."

Hermione was doing the math in her head, "Even if that were true, for you to know about this Brennan and Sirius, he would have had to have been born nearly fourteen years before he was."

"I did the same thing to him that I did to Miranda. After I killed Brennan, I was married to Orion, but I was already pregnant. I hid it, and then I hid him. Sirius replaced another in a long line of miscarriages and stillborns. Only Miranda, Kreacher, and his father even knew of his existence in 1944."

Harry turned pale, "You just said you killed Brennan."

"You heard me correctly. I killed him. My father would have killed us both otherwise, and killed Sirius too." She smiled, that smile that came from a deranged woman barely clinging to her last shred of sanity, she looked more like Bellatrix than ever, "I had to save my baby, and I did. He's a good man, they both were. But my poor, poor Regulus, went and got himself murdered by the Dark Lord." The two old friends exchanged a look, pain in both their eyes, for one's brother had killed the other's son.

"I'm sorry, Burga. I really am. Have you seen Brennan?" Miranda asked gently.

Walburga shook her head and the temperature in the room dropped about five degrees. "No, I've done too much evil to go where he went. I was just waiting for you to wake up. To make sure my spell worked after your father messed with it. I would wait for Sirius, but I know, when his time comes, he'll go to his father, and I hope my three boys are safe and happy."

Miranda couldn't tell her, she couldn't break the last strand of sanity Walburga still had, "I'm sure Sirius will be just fine, I've heard he's a good man. Harry knows him, he's his godfather." The girl met Harry's gaze again, silently begging him to go along with what she was saying.

Harry felt himself go still, Walburga didn't know her son was dead. The ghost turned to him hopefully, "He's alright?"

Harry forced himself to nod, "Yeah, he's letting us stay in this house, since it's his now. I'm James and Lilly Potter's son."

The ghost's smile fell, "James? You're Lilly's son?" Harry nodded, and then Walburga saw his eyes, "No, no, no!"

The portrait above them started screaming again, "Filthy half blood! Damn your muggle blood!"

Walburga began to cry, her tears falling to the ground and shattering like ice. She brushed a hand over Harry's cheek, "You have his eyes, he's still there, in you." She kissed his forehead and the skin she touched burned from the cold of her touch, "I'm alright now." She looked up to her own portrait, "Let me take care of that before I leave." The whole thing blew off the wall an instant later, leaving the door of Miranda's imprisonment out for all to see. She smiled at Miranda, "I'm sorry for what I've done. Can you ever forgive me?"

Miranda nodded, "Yes, I can." She looked at her new companions, "I think I'm supposed to be here." Her eyes lingered on Harry for an instant before looking back at the ghost, "There's things I have to end."

Walburga smiled, her entire face lighting up, "I understand. I'm going now, now that I know Sirius is okay, that you're okay. I'll go accept my punishment. Goodbye, Miranda, goodbye Remus, goodbye Harry and friends, I'm sorry for everything." She faded away and the temperature in the room spiked.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Harry yelled at Miranda, who was walking to the sitting room, her head down.

She sat with a heavy sigh, "Because, she would have lost it. I couldn't put her through that. I was surprised at how well she handled you."

"I don't understand, handled me? What does that even mean." Harry was so confused.

Miranda smiled sarcastically, "Walburga's lover, Sirius' father, was a man named Brennan Evans."

Hermione gasped and Ron cursed. Remus just stayed still, shaking his head, "Lilly's father..."

Miranda nodded, "Brennan's younger brother, he was only a child when I saw him, but I believe his name was Robert, they called him Bobby. Sirius was Lilly's cousin, he was your cousin Harry, that's what I meant when I said the house was yours. It would have gone to you, through the paternal line. Brennan's line, not Orion's."

Suddenly it made sense to Harry, why he had always felt so good with Sirius, they were actually related, "Thank you." Harry said.

Miranda understood, "Your welcome."

Remus looked at her critically, "You really are from then, aren't you?" Miranda nodded, "Then, you must have gone to Hogwarts, what do you know about a boy named Tom Riddle?"

"I never went to Hogwarts." She said, her voice tight, not meeting anyone's gaze. She couldn't lie to them, or they wouldn't trust her, but that didn't mean she couldn't leave things out, "I only know what Walburga told me about it, and that wasn't much. She liked to keep her school and home lives separate. I was home schooled."

Remus looked disappointed, "Why were you home schooled?"

Miranda smiled, "My Papa was a bit of a survivalist. No school, no being outside without someone watching me, and no friends he didn't approve of. And also, apparently, I was no longer allowed to go anywhere. Hence the room behind that lovely painting." She shook the rising anger off, "Enough about me though. I'm here to help you all now. What are we going to do now, we can't stay here too much longer."

"We'll have to head out soon, that much is true. May I ask, what impossible task Dumbledore has sat upon you all?" Remus asked.

"No, you can't." Harry said, a little snappishly.

"Alright then, don't tell me, but will four become five?"

"No. Is there something going on between you and Tonks? Where is she, anyway?" Harry asked, sizing up his rugged mentor.

"No, she's fine, with her parents." The man said tersely.

"Why is she at her parent's?" Hermione asked.

"She...we...we're having a baby." he said, a dismal look on his face.

"Congratulations!"

"How great!"

Remus only forced a small smile that looked more like a grimace. "So...do you accept my offer? Will four become five? I cannot believe that Dumbledore would have disapproved, he appointed me your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, after all. And I must tell you that I believe that we are facing magic many of us have never encountered or imagined."

The rest looked to Harry, Miranda biting her tongue. "Just-just to be clear," he said. "You want to leave Tonks at her parents' house and come away with us?"

"She'll be perfectly safe there, they'll look after her," said Lupin. He spoke with a finality bordering on indifference. "Harry, I'm sure James would have wanted me to stick with you."

"Well," said Harry slowly, "I'm not. I'm pretty sure my father would have wanted to know why you aren't sticking with your kid, actually."

The werewolf's face turned white. "You don't understand." He said at last.

"Explain, then," said Harry.

"I-I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better judgment and I have regretted it very much ever since."

Harry nodded, and Miranda moved to grab his hand, which he gripped tightly. She understood his anger, and he knew it. "I see," Harry said tightly, "so you're just going to dump her and the kid and run off with us?"

Lupin sprang to his feet: his chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face.

"Don't you understand what I've done to my wife and my unborn child? I should never have married her, I've made her an outcast!"

The wolf kicked the chair. "You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore's protection at Hogwarts! You don't know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me! Don't you see what I've done? Even her own family is disgusted by out marriage, what parents want their only daughter to marry a werewolf? And the child-the child-" He started pulling on his own hair, looking just as deranged as Walburga had. "My kind don't usually breed! It will be like me, I am convinced of it- how can I forgive myself, when I knowingly risked passing on my own condition to an innocent child? And if, by some miracle, it is not like me, then it will be better off, a hundred times so, without a father of whom it must always be ashamed!"

"Remus!" Whispered Hermione, tears in her eyes. "Don't say that- how could any child be ashamed of you?"

Harry's hand clenched on Miranda's and she fought the urge to pull her hand out of the ferocious grip, "Oh, I don't know, Hermione," he said. "I'd be pretty ashamed of him." This rage was new in Harry, even Miranda could tell that much, and she knew she was the cause. He continued on, "If the new regime thinks Muggle-borns are bad, what will they do to a half-werewolf whose father's in the Order? My father died trying to protect my mother and mom and you reckon he'd tell you to abandon your kid to go on an adventure with us?"

"How- how dare you?" He growled, "This is not about a desire for-for danger or personal glory-how dare you suggest such a-"

"I think you're feeling a bit of a daredevil," Harry said. "You fancy stepping into Sirius's shoes-"

"Harry, no!" Hermione begged him, but he continued to glare into Lupin's livid face.

"I'd never have believed this. The man who taught me to fight dementors- a coward."

Lupin drew his wand so fast that only Miranda had been able to react fast enough, throwing herself in front of Harry. With a loud bang, the pair flew into the kitchen wall, Harry wrapping his arms around Miranda instinctively, glimpsing the tail of Lupin's cloak disappearing around the door. Miranda's head cracked against the wall over Harry's shoulder.

"Remus, Remus, come back!" Hermione cried, but Lupin did not respond. A moment later they heard the front door slam. "Harry!" Wailed Hermione, "How could you?"

"It was easy." He said, standing up, still holding Miranda in his arms, struggling under her weight, not noticing that she wasn't standing on her own. "Don't look at me like that!" He snapped at Hermione, who's eyes were flitting from Harry to Miranda.

"Don't you start on her!" Snarled Ron.

"Stop it!" Hermione yelled, rushing towards Harry, "Harry! Put her down!"

"What?"

"Put her down!"

It was then that Harry realized that Miranda wasn't moving.

Ah...so sorry about the cliffie, they seem to be popping up every where...sorry! History will finally be done for a while, not much else to tell the Golde Trio until we have to get to all the messy Tom stuff. I hope this chapter made a few more of you feel sorry for Walburga and Brennan. This fic is becoming very difficult to pin down to give you all any sort of preview, but, this time, I pinky swear, Mundungus in the next chapter, with perhaps the start of the infiltration of the Ministry. I am sorry about the previously unreliable previews...I just got caught up in the amazingness of Lupin...ahh. ;) I honestly can't wait for Miranda to be reunited with her "old bottle brush", so, yes, next chapter. I swear! Tehee!

Please, review!

-Jenn

P.S. I put up a poll for this story, if you wouldn't mind checking it out for me and giving your opinion, that would be great!

P.S.S. Would anyone like to see me put up a little Walburga/Brennan one or two shot up someday? Not until this story is in hand, but, eventually? I've come to love those two, and want to know if you all would be interested, or if i'd just write somethign like that for myself.