The down side to staying at Grimmauld was that there was always something weird going there, something that Kassia learned very quickly.

There was screaming and things breaking coming from the basement. Tonks, Lupin, Ron, and Sirius had gone to find the furnace which had apparently gone out because the house was freezing.

"What are they doing down there?" Kassia asked.

"I've learned to stop asking," Hermione replied.

"I HATE MICE!" Tonks squealed.

"Oh, come off it Tonks," Sirius said. "I've seen spiders bigger than that."

"SPIDERS!" Ron squealed.

"Ron is arachnophobia," I said. "Once in third year we followed a whole trail of spiders into the forest and it turned out to be an acromantula nest. Scarred him for life."

"Why would you follow spiders into the forest? That's asking for trouble," Kassia said.

"It's a very long story that involves Moaning Myrtle, a really big snake, and Hermione being petrified," I said.

"Then forget I asked," Kassia said.

There was another scream.

"It's just a mouse woman!" Lupin said.

"But I HATE MICE!" Tonks screeched.

Sirius walked out of the basement shaking his head. "The incompetence."

"They're your relatives," Kassia pointed out.

"Oh, Devil Child, you're still here. I thought maybe Satan had come and whisked you away back to hell," Sirius said.

"Wishful thinking," Kassia said.

Kassia and Sirius had been like this the entire time she'd been here.

"That basement has got to get cleaned out this summer. Kreacher is hiding things down there," Sirius said. "And guess who's gonna do it?"

I groaned. "Why?"

"Because you can't keep your hands to yourself," Sirius said.

"If anything, all this hands on work is just going to make her more skilled at what she does," Kassia said. "But it's fine. I'm sure Draco won't mind at all and he loves Hannah so he's probably willing to reciprocate."

Sirius' face flushed red and he leered at Kassia. "Go back to Hell where you came from Devil Child."

"As long as I can take you with me," she replied.

Sirius stomped out of the room.

"I think I just successfully knocked 10 years off his life expectancy," Kassia said.

"You're going to get me into trouble. Is it possible to tone down the Slytherin while you're here?" I asked.

"Look, it's taking all the restraint I can muster to not pick on Tonks who is clearly a Hufflepuff. Asking me to do anything else is just too much work," Kassia said.

I shook my head at her. "You'd better not get me more grounded."

"You'll manage to do that yourself," Hermione said. "Promise."

Tonks, Lupin, and Ron walked out of basement.

"We fixed the furnace!" Ron and Tonks cheered as Sirius entered the room.

"We?" Lupin asked. "As I recall, I fixed the furnace and you two screamed like a bunch of pansys the entire time."

"You three go wash up and get ready for dinner," Mrs. Weasley instructed them.

"So, Devil Girl, I was thinking, you remind me a lot of old Snivellus," Sirius said.

"Do I really?" she asked.

"Yes. I mean I know you aren't related by blood by the resemblance is there," Sirius said. "For example, your nose isn't quite big enough to have it's own gravitational pull but it's pointy like his. And you've got the whole black hair thing going on. And you know, he's also a spawn of Satan."

"Well you know us children of the devil have got to stick together," Kassia replied.

Tonks, Lupin, and Ron walked back into the kitchen and sat down.

"You two need to tone down the hostility. It's driving me mad," Harry said.

"Well she started it," Sirius said.

"Oh, did I? How?" Kassia asked.

"By. . . By. . . By being the spawn of Satan. That's how," Sirius said. In his fit, he accidentally lid and knocked a plate of the table, shattering it.

"Good, job," Kassia said.

Sirius leered at her as he went to ix the plate.

"I'm so happy to see someone besides me break something," Tonks said, slamming her hand down on the table. The knife sitting in her place flipped up into the air and landed right down through her hand.

"Tonks," Kassia started, "there's a knife-."

"I know. . . There's a knife in my hand. However, if I look at it then it'll throw me into panic," Tonks said. "So. . . Someone help me."

"I'll do it," Lupin said. He lifted her hand from the table, knife still attached and walked her out of the kitchen.

"She's either really brave or really stupid," Kassia said.

"Has to be or else she'd never leave the house," Mr. Weasley said.

"So did you all hear about that large group of dangerous magical creatures that got loose last night?" Kassia asked, desperate for a change of subject.

"Oh yes. They were going crazy at work today. Apparently the department for the regulation and control of Magical Creatures has been having a tough time rounding them up," Mr. Weasley said.

"It was all sorts of creatures too," Bill said. "Fwoopers, ghouls, griffins, pogrebin, lethifolds, Red Caps, crups, the whole shebang."

I shuttered. "Lethifolds give me the creeps."

"What are they?" Harry asked.

"Honestly, Harry," Hermione started, "don't-."

"Hermione, ask me if I read and I'll strike you. I dare you," Harry said.

I shook my head. "Lethifolds, I guess are just really flat cloak like creatures. They wrap you up like a blanket and eat you. Only way out of it is the patronus charm not that you're really able to get to your wand to use while you're being restrained and suffocated. They can slip in under doors trough open windows and they're completely silent so you never know they're there until it's too late."

"But aren't lethifold attacks really rare?" Kassia asked.

"Hard to say. They don't leave anything behind. Unless you actually witnessed it you might just think the person has gone missing," Sirius said. "Still, lethifolds are nothing. When I was 12, I got attacked by a crup."

"Draco has two crups named Yippy and Jingle. They're adorable," I said.

"Oh, he has pets that don't like muggles. That's just like a Malfoy," Sirius said.

"Really, Sirius? Are we gonna play this game again? On my last night here?" I asked. "Or maybe I should just have Kassia talk for me for the rest of the evening."

"That's quite enough out of you three," Mrs. Weasley said.

Kassia rolled her eyes.

I'd been lying in bed all night sleeping, and I woken up five minutes ago feeling like something wasn't quite right.

*Is Voldemort trying to get into my brain again?*

-No, it's all clear in here.-

*Am I having some sort of nightmatre?*

-No. You're wide awake.-

*Maybe my surroundings are all wrong.*

-Then open your eyes and look around.-

I opened my eyes and saw blackness. Complete blackness.

*Oh, God! I'm blind!*

-Try moving the blankets off your head.-

I chuckled to myself and went to lift the blanket but the oddest thing happened, I couldn't. I took the one arm that wasn't under the blanket ad tried to pull it off me from the top, but again, I couldn't move it, and it didn't feel very much like my blanket at all.

Then I started to feel a lot of pressure on my chest and all the oxygen was slowly escaping my lungs.

I took y free hand and reached over and onto the nightstand, feeling around for my wand. After knocking over what I suspected was the photograph of my parents and a lamp, I grabbed hold of my wand.

I didn't have very much oxygen left to speak so I was going to have to do this quickly if I didn't want to be eaten alive.

"Expecto patronum," I uttered out pathetically, but to my luck it worked just as it was supposed to. The darkness was gone, I could breathe again, and I was holding a lethifold at wand point on my bedroom floor.

Hermione and Kassia had woken up and were rubbing their eyes.

"Is it morning already?" Hermione asked.

"No," I wheezed, finally, trying to remember how breathe again.

"Wait. . . Is that. . . It couldn't be," Kassia said. "A lethifold?"

Hermione sighed. "I'm not even surprised."

"How are you not surprised? I mean this never happens. We were just talking about this at dinner," Kassia said.

"I know," Hermione said.

"It's a way too big of a coincidence," Kassia went on.

"Which means it probably isn't," Hermione replied. "This sort of thing happens all the time. Why at Christmas time Hannah got possessed by Voldemort. This is nothing compared to that. I'll go get Lupin or someone."

"Not necessary."

We looked over to the door and there stood Dumbledore. He pointed his wand at the lethifold and the creature went rigid. He picked it up off the floor.

"Good night ladies," he said. He walked out of the room.

"I suppose that's normal too?" Kassia asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing about Dumbledore is normal. His normal pattern of behavior is to just be weird as he possibly can."

The next morning we were sitting at the table, surrounded by our luggage. Tonks had her head lying on the table, sleeping soundly, apparently, having been called away to the ministry late that evening for business.

"You have some really bad luck," Sirius said.

"I think your house has bad luck is what it is. I mean what's happened to me since I got here this summer – I got attacked by doxies, knocked over a railing, dropped over a railing, possessed by Voledmort, attacked by a lethifold, and let's not forget Kreacher's constant verbal abuse," I said.

"Well at least you don't have to work the night shift at Azkaban like Tonks here," Lupin said, sitting in the chair next to her.

". . . True," I said.

"You know," Sirius said looking at the pot of coffee in his hand, "I remember her once saying the smell of coffee wakes her up."

"Yes," Lupin agreed.

Before he could say anything else, Sirius dumped the coffee over Lupin's head, causing him to let out a scream. Tonks jumped awake, startled by the yell.

We all stared in awe as Lupin proceeded to chew Sirius out using a string of big words and profanities.

". . . Whoa. . . Sorry, Remus," Sirius said.

"Fuck you," Lupin replied getting to his feet.

"Uhm. . . Sirius are you on drugs?" Harry asked.

"What do you know? I mean, no. Why?" Sirius asked.

"Well you just dumped a pit of scalding hot coffee onto your best friend's head for starters," I said.

"Oh, it's not big deal," Sirius said.

Lupin leered at Sirius and then kicked him in the shins.

Sirius fell to the ground with a yelp.

"Ah, my leg!" he screeched. "What kind of shoes are you wearing?"

"I think we should get you to the train," Tonks said climbing to her feet.

"Are they steel toed?" Sirius wailed from the ground. "Oh, God, I can't stand! I think you've fractured it!"

"Good idea, Tonks," Emily said.