Okay, I'm not sure about this chapter, dunno, something about it, it doesn't feel right. Also, appologies if my latin is not correct. Oppugno and expello are cannon spells I think, the rest I've made up, but they are all latin and I think the translations are all included in the chapter – apart form Repugno which means 'fight back' I think.

Chapter 38

"Well, let's try and break down the curse first..." I said scratching the two-day old stubble on my chin. Sirius' lips twitched as he watched me think, perhaps still a little irritated that I was treating this vulgar display of his private unpleasant memories as some sort of challenge. I gave him an apologetic smile before continuing.

"They are your memories aren't they?" I asked and Sirius nodded. "Memories that frighten you?" Sirius winced slightly at my suggestion that he was afraid.

"More disgust, regret..." He mumbled, and I nodded.

"In any case, it's surely a curse designed to provoke negative emotions using memories – like a dementor." I said. "So we should fight the curse in a similar way."

"With a Patronus?" Sirius questioned. "But you tried that, it didn't really work."

"It did seem to hold them back a little." I argued, starting to pace the room before I could prevent myself. "But, you're right it wasn't tremendously effective...Now that might just be because the memories are not directed at me – they are directed at you. Your patronus might work better. But, patronuses don't destroy dementors any more than they erase the past events they remind you of. I don't think a patronus would destroy the ghosts, it would just hold them back."

"So what then? What do we need?"

"How would you destroy something that is trying to frighten you..."

"Show it that you're not afraid, then its raison d'etre would be...void. It would cancel itself out – if the only reason it exists is to frighten and it doesn't frighten it wont exist anymore."

"Yes!" I agreed, and Sirius raised an eyebrow at my enthusiasm. I cleared my throat and continued. "How could we show that we – you are not afraid?"

To this question Sirius said nothing. Suddenly, there was a loud banging and Sirius jumped up from the door and pointed his wand at it. I did the same as I saw the door rattling on hits hinges as if something were trying to break in.

"What is that?" I questioned my heart racing.

"There's nothing out there but the ghosts?"

"Ghosts can't do that to doors." I argued. "And anyway, they could just come through the wall if they are ghosts."

"I don't think they can." Sirius told me. "I brought us up here because it was the one room in the house I felt safe – where they couldn't do anything to me. The door is enchanted so that once I lock it, my family can't enter – not even if they blew apart the door. I would have thought that applies to the ghosts as well."

"That still doesn't explain how they are able to do that to the door – they are not physical things they can't affect physical things..." I commented as if I could somehow make the door stop rattling with logic.

"They pulled me into a wall." Sirius argued. "Lets just work out a way of countering this curse – quickly." Sirius added over the top of the banging.

"Okay okay..." I said trying to think. "The curse's ammunition is memories so we should fight back with memories. Happy ones. Ones that make you feel...confident."

"We'd have to bring the memories to life I think, like the curse does." Sirius added and I nodded.

"Okay we need a bowl or something..." I said glancing around the room. Nothing suitable jumped out at me. Sirius crouched down and looked under his bed. A moment later he was pulling out a large wooden box that appeared to be full of records. He tipped the records out onto the bed then turned to me.

"Will this do?" He asked and I nodded. "What's it for?"

"We'll fill it with memories, like a penseive." I said.

"But you need a potion, and a stone bowl, to make a penseive." Sirius argued as the banging seemed to get louder.

"I know," I shouted over the top of it, "but that's just what enables you to view the memories, we don't need to view them, we just need to collect them. They should be your memories, I don't think mine would work."

"What about memories we share?" Sirius suggested.

"Alright." I agreed. "They need to be happy." I added shouting over the top of the banging. Then I tried to think of something I had done with Sirius that would make him feel happy. My mind was blank. Reminiscing about the 'good times' (and regretting their demise) is normally something my mind does so well, it was so typical that now was the time it suddenly started to live in the present.

"I can't concentrate over that noise!" Sirius shouted, obviously having the same problem. "Silencio!" He yelled angrily pointing his wand at the door. The noise abruptly stopped and I sighed with relief, though I could still see the door rattling on its hinges.

"Let's start simple: first time we met." I said. "We were going to Hogwarts, you were escaping your parents, that's got to be a good memory?"

Sirius nodded and I placed my wand to my temple and murmured the appropriate charm so that I could extract the memory. I pulled from my mind the silver strand containing my recollection of Sirius joining me on the Hogwarts express and offering me a chocolate frog. I deposited the strand, that seemed neither liquid nor gas, but something in between, into the box. Sirius did the same, his memory a slightly darker silver than mine. Then, I racked my brain for another happy memory.

"Rescuing the hostages from the potions lab in Yorkshire?" Sirius suggested, and I grinned.

"Oh that's definitely qualifies." I said and I pulled the memory from my mind. The event Sirius was referring to was probably our most successful Order mission to date. A group of Death Eaters were attempting to commandeer one of the largest potions laboratories in the UK, and had taken all of the potions brewers hostage. The rescue strategy was complex and involved a direct attack lead by Sirius and I, while a second group infiltrated the laboratory and led the hostages to safety. From start to finish we accomplished the mission in under six hours, no hostages were killed, or even severely injured, one Death Eater was killed, but the rest were all captured. During a time when most Order missions resulted in our friends dying, this success was accompanied by a strange sort of weary rejoicing.

"What about the day we got our NEWT results? That was pretty good." I then suggested casting a nervous glance at the bedroom door, whose frame was beginning to splinter.

"I never cared about that." Sirius said with an impatient wave of his hand. And I rolled my eyes for temporally being stupid enough to think that it would: of course he wouldn't care, Sirius aced every exam without even trying, an ability I was horribly jealous of.

"Christmas 1978." Sirius declared, and I tried to cast my mind back to that year. I had a dull picture of Sirius dancing in a Siouxsie and the Banshees T-shirt, and James and Lily playing Exploding Snap.

"I know the war was in full swing, but James and Lily had just got married, none of our friends had died yet..." Sirius continued, and as memories returned to me I began to see what he was getting at.

"I had a job." I added remembering how I worked as a Latin tutor while I began a degree in Theory of Magic.

"I'd just got the Motorcycle to fly," added Sirius smiling slightly.

"The girl from the Apothecary fancied me," I said as I remembered kissing her under mistletoe while I was buying Sirius Hangover potion as a Christmas present.

"Dream on Moony, she was way out of your league. She felt sorry for you was what it was." Sirius argued, but he was grinning.

"Ok, all those will do." I said and we extracted the memories and put them in the box.

Memories were coming to the pair of us more quickly now and we added more to our stockpile: James and Lily's wedding; Harry's second first birthday (Sirius was absent on his actual first birthday so James and Lily had to throw him a second party for Sirius' benefit), and lastly:

"The time we all came to visit you in Ireland the, and managed to break you out of the cellar on the full moon. Remember?" Sirius said, and I saw his grey eyes grow suddenly brighter. "We explored the forrest and came to the river – and the moon looked so Goddamn big. I remember the way it was reflected in the water...I felt like we owned the world that night."

I remember the event Sirius was talking about, though I would never have imagined he would had attached so much emotional significance to it. But the expression on his face told me that this was exactly the sort of memory we needed. I extracted my recollection of the event just as Sirius did the same.

"Alright, let's see how we get on with those, um..." I said as I tried to formulate a spell that would do what I wanted.

"What do you want to do with them?" Sirius said pointing to the pool of silver memories.

"I want to..." I said gesticulating wildly to try and explain myself. "I want to use them like bullets."

"What are bullets?" Sirius asked me.

"They are the things that fire out of muggle guns." I explained quickly.

"Oh," said Sirius, "and we'll fire them at the ghosts?"

"Yes, and then I want them to play out – the memories I mean. Then I would imagine the actualisation of the memories would be enough to cancel out the ghosts."

"Right," Sirius said breathing through his mouth and glancing at his bedroom door. "So, we need some sort of animating charm, and...and a spell that directs the good memories towards the bad: a spell that makes them a weapon."

"Yes, animating them will be fairly easy I think, appearo would probably do," I said,

"What about appearo in meus signum." (appear on my signal.)

"We want the memories to play out when they hit the target though...appearo in contactus, would be better." (Appear on contact.)

"We also need a spell that will make them attack the ghosts," Sirius continued, "what about Oppugno?"

"Oppugno in meus signum?" (attack on my signal.)

"What shall our signal be?"

"Contendo? It means to shoot."

"Yeah alright. We should probably include the intention as well..."

"Expello hostis?" (to drive out the enemy)

"That'll work."

"Alright... together?"

"Yes."

We held our wands over the swirling silver memories and said together:

"Salvio hexia, oppugno in meus signum, appearo in contactus, expello hostis..."

As we spoke our intentions the memories quivered and glowed slightly, which was an encouraging sign. We repeated the incantation a few times to make sure that every memory had been enchanted. Then we drew the memories into our wands using another invented spell. Sirius took his memories and I took mine. Once they were inside my wand I pointed my wand towards the rattling door.

"Contendo!" I said firmly, and a silvery bullet shot from my wand. It pierced through the air and hit the door. As soon as it did, to my delight, there was an explosion of silver and two figures materialised. The figures were blurred and smokey, just like the apparitions of Sirius' family had been, but these two figures were of James and Lily. I felt a surge of warmth in my chest when I saw them. They were looking at each other with matching stupid grins. James looked scruffy, as he always did, but handsome, and Lily looked beautiful, as she always did, in her wedding dress. The dress looked slightly strange on her as it wasn't hers, it was her mother's; a lot of people were getting married very quickly in those days – a morbid precaution in case they never got a chance to – so Lily didn't really have the time (or the money) to source her own wedding dress; nevertheless she still looked very pretty.

"I can't believe I get to marry you." James said looking slightly insane with happiness.

"I know!" Lily said with a role of her eyes, characteristic or her sardonic wit, but then she smiled. Suddenly a third figure appeared, this time a young, disgustingly handsome Sirius.

"Come on! He said 'man and wife' already, you are waisting valuable drinking time!" Sirius said, a remark which cause both Lily and James to laugh and hurriedly kiss each other. I grinned as the memory faded away. I glanced towards Sirius and was pleased to see a smirk on his face, but it soon disappeared as the door began to rattle again.

"You've just waisted one." He said to me.

"I had to check that it worked." I argued. "Anyway, are you ready?" Sirius raised his wand.

"Ready."

"Okay, after three, unlock the door." I told him. "One, two, three."

Sirius opened the door. On the other side, I saw the ghosts of Sirius' family. Their faces were even more blurry than they were before so that I could hardly make out their features. All I could really see were their glowing red eyes. I held my breath, fearing that they would attack. But instead they swooped backwards, disappearing into the shadowy hallway. Sirius and I followed them into the hallway and down to the second floor landing. The ghosts had returned to their original postions and the memories had started to replay. I wondered if this was perhaps all they could do, whether their vehement pounding of Sirius' bedroom door was just a bluff, something designed to force him to leave the room so they could once again remind him of how horrid his childhood had been. I looked towards my friend, whose face was steely and unafraid. Whatever those ghosts were trying to do, they had no chance. Sirius pointed his wand at the ghost version of his Mother who was in the process of cursing a teenage version of himself until he was leaning against the wall gasping and shivering in pain.

"Contendo!" He yelled. The silver memory fired from his wand, soared towards the ghost of his mother and, just as we had hoped, when it hit her it exploded. The explosion broke apart the phantom's body and forming in her place were ghost versions of myself and Sirius when we were twelve.

"Oh, I guess that means you can't be friends with me then. My mum's a muggle." I saw the younger version of myself say. It was strange to see myself from this perspective: I was so much smaller than I remember.

"Aha! But that's the thing!" The young Sirius cried with a huge happy grin. "I'm going to Hogwarts and my parents will be far away in London: I can be friends with whoever the hell I want!" The memory faded away unveiling the memory of Sirius and Regulus arguing that was playing out at the end of the corridor. I aimed my wand at the pair and shot a memory at them. Smokey apparitions of myself and Sirius at about twenty materialised in the hall way, breaking apart the ghosts of Regulus and Sirius as they appeared. I stared at the actualised memory of Sirius. Sirius and I were both out of breath, but ecstatic looking. We were holding our wands in front of us, obviously having just won a dual or two...or six if I remember correctly.

"That was an impressive jelly-legs jinx Remus, he looked like he was falling over even when he was lying down!"

"Thank you Sirius." I said, "And credit to you too, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a gastroenteritus curse."

Sirius let out a cheeky bark like laugh and I joined in before saying

"Right, lets call the others..." After which the memory began to fade.

Sirius was already heading down the stairs and I followed. He held his wand at the next memory, which was the one of Orion abusing Andromeda. Sirius pointed his wand at Orion and yelled "Contendo!" but the ghost version of Orion dodged the silver bullet. My body tensed as I released this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought. Orion stepped towards Sirius – the real Sirius – while the other ghosts metled away. With one hand Orion grabbed Sirius' wand arm before he could cast another spell while he wrapped his other hand around Sirius neck. Then Orion tried to push Sirius into the wall just as the portraits had done. Meanwhile the memory that Sirius had fired had hit the wall and exploded. A memory from Christmas 1978 started to play, I could see ghost-versions of Sirius, James and myself laughing about something, though I could not hear what over the sound of the real Sirius shouting at his father.

"James!" I suddenly shouted, thinking that if the memories the house was creating could take on a life of their own, maybe the good memories could do the same. James' ghost turned to look at me and I grinned with triumph.

"Repugno!" I shouted pointing my wand at James and then flicking it towards Sirius who was struggling against the supernatural force of his father. James ran to help Sirius. He grabbed the ghost of Orion by the shoulders, his eyes determined behind his glasses, and yanked him away from his old friend. Orion looked surprised for a moment but as James pulled him away from the real Sirius, he began to disappear, as the happiness Sirius felt at seeing his old friend outweighed any latent fear he might have for his father. Within in few moments the ghost Orion had vanished. I looked at James' ghost my heart beating fast. I knew he wasn't real, I could see that he was only made of smoke, but the way he smiled at Sirius and I made me wonder whether I was looking at the real James. Sirius also stared at James somewhat in awe.

"How does that work?" Sirius said and James laughed at him, then winked before he disappeared.

"They're just memories right?" Sirius asked me and I shrugged. Suddenly I heard movement from the level below.

"Do you think the ghosts have realised what we're up to?" Sirius asked, and in answer to his question Bellatrix Black appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Contendo!" I shouted, but she dodged the memory. It hit the wall behind her and a memory started to play, but I didn't watch it for long enough to work out what it was, because at that same moment, faster than I could really see, the ghost Bellatrix had darted behind Sirius and put her arm around his' neck. Sirius let out a weird strangled cough and Bellatrix pulled him a few steps backwards towards the wall. She whispered something into Sirius' ear and his face twisted into an ugly glare. Bellatrix laughed then brushed her parted lips across Sirius' cheek. Sirius lost his temper, jabbed his wand over his shoulder and forced one of our memories to explode inside her. The ghost shattered and disappeared and replacing her was another memory from Christmas 1978.

"What is it?" I saw James' ghost say to a nineteen year old Sirius.

"It's a motorcycle." Sirius told James impatiently.

"What's one of those?"

"It's like a bicycle with an engine."

"Why would anyone want to put an engine on a two-wheeled vehicle, that's so dangerous."

I couldn't help but chuckle as the memory faded away, Sirius was also smiling.

"Come on let's get the rest of them." He said and we hurried downstairs.

Downstairs we met an angry uncle who we had to chase around the kitchen table before the memory of Padfoot trying (and failing) to out howl me by the river finally got him and the uncle vanished. We also met Narcissa Black who used to steal things from the Black house and blame it on Sirius so that Sirius' mother would temporarily remove his fingers as punishment. I took her out with another memory of rescuing the hostages from the potions laboratory.

In the dining room we came across a memory of the entire Black family. They were sitting around the dinning table eating dinner – all except Sirius who had been magically bound to his chair and unable to touch the food in front of him. A small Regulus, who was sitting opposite Sirius, shovelled food into his mouth and grinned in a teasing sort of way at his brother. I never found out why Sirius' parents were deliberately starving him because the memory stopped playing after Sirius shot another good memory (Sirius and James laughing at my terrible Christmas cracker joke) at the dining table where it exploded into life, disintegrating the ghosts of Sirius' past.

Soon there was only one ghost left, the one that started it all: the version of Walburga Black that had climbed out of her portrait. We cornered her in the entrance hall, and I noticed that the portraits of Sirius' family that hung there, that had emptied when the portraits came to life and pulled Sirius into the wall, were occupied again. Evidently when Sirius and I destroyed the memories the ghosts had been forced to return to their portraits. They all looked furious about this and were shouting and jeering at Sirius and I. I shot the last memory I had left at Walburga (one of a one year old Harry Potter head-butting a sniggering Sirius' knees) but for some unknown reason the memory didn't work on her. Sirius shot his last memory, but it was similarly ineffective. Walburga just brushed the memories away with her hands like they were cobwebs.

"Why isn't it working?" Sirius yelled at me as Walburga and the rest of the portraits all laughed at us.

"I don't know, perhaps the memories weren't happy enough." I suggested. Then, just like before Walburga started to summon the ghosts back from their portraits. I saw them all walk towards the front of their frames and reach outwards. But Sirius wasn't about to be captured again.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" He shouted. Sirius' lioness patronus burst into life and roared at Walburga who immediately backed away. The lioness reared up on her hind legs and swiped her claws at Mrs Black, forcing the ugly witch to take another step backwards towards her portrait.

Thinking of all the memories Sirius and I had recalled earlier, I summoned my own patronus. The osprey swooped around Walburga's head while the lion clawed at her legs.

"Force her back into the portrait!" Sirius yelled at his patronus and I silently willed mine to do the same. The osprey and the lion pushed Walburga backwards, and in fear she flung one arm out behind her. It his the canvas of her own portrait and sunk into it like it was quicksand. Then, just as I had been unable to pull Sirius out of the wall hours ago, Walburga was unable to stop her own body being pulled back into her portrait. She screamed out in protest, but she could not scream louder than Sirius' lion could roar or my osprey could shriek. Once Walburga was once again inside her portrait she reached her hands towards the frame, in an attempt to pull herself back out, but then Sirius yelled,

"Imprison her!" And the lion jumped up and pressed its front paws, with its huge claws drawn, firmly on the front of the portrait. It gave one last invincible roar, and for a second I could see silver streaks flash across the painting. The lion jumped down from the portrait and padded over to Sirius, who reached out a hand and stroked its head. My patronus flew towards me and I held out an arm for it to perch on. I looked at its handsome austere face and it bowed its head to me before gradually fading away. Once it had gone I looked towards Walburga who was still screaming bloody murder from within her portrait, but she now seemed unable to come out of it.

"How dare you! You filthy insolent traitor!" She screamed but Sirius ignored her. Instead he looked at me. He looked very tired, and I couldn't quite read the expression in his strange silver eyes. He had a relieved sort of grin on his face, so obviously he was pleased that we had destroyed all the ghosts and forced his family to return to their portraits, but the grin didn't quite reach his eyes. But if I were him I would feel the same I think: we had beaten the curse, yes, but all those memories, all those horrible things that Sirius had had to endure during his childhood, they had all still happened; nothing could change that.

"How did you do that?" I asked him, pointing at the portrait.

"Imprison her?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. I just, couldn't stand her anymore. And you said my patronus might be able to do something, so...I thought I'd try it." Sirius said with a shrug, then he grimaced and turned back to his angry mother. "Shut up! You can scream all you want you are not coming out and we are not leaving!" Walburga ignored her son and continued to rant. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Silencio!" Sirius shouted pointing his wand at the portrait, but it did nothing. "How do you think we shut her up?"

"We could try and take the picture down." I suggested.

"Tomorrow." Sirius said with a yawn, and he turned to walk up the stairs. "Or you could transform here and rip her to shreds. I don't think a painting would have much chance against a werewolf." He added as I began to follow him and I cringed

"Padfoot you can't...set me on people – or things," I chastised, and Sirius laughed, "but it would probably work!" I added over my shoulder to Walburga who promptly stopped shouting.

"Ah that's how you do it: threaten to maul her."

NB: Just realised I've made Sirius' eyes silver and Remus' eyes gold. That wasn't even on purpose.