It had been a couple of days since they started cleaning the drawing-room.
Harry no longer needed to wipe the dust off his glasses as the shelves became emptier and emptier, the floor filled with large sacks of rubbish and stored heirlooms, cabinets stacked and armchairs—no longer wheezing it's own insides— moved to the far wall.

Cleaning felt like a war in this room. Everyone's hands eventually reddened from scrubbing, layered smells of fix-it potions and masking fragrances grew hard to wash off each evening. Casualties were taken when Cedric and Fred—so affected by the scents—tried to work with toothpaste under their noses while Ginny had to stop completely; a constant rate of sneezes erupting from her direction every half-second despite having a heavily bundled face.
On a separate occasion, Ron disappeared for two hours after he lifted a mat and discovered that a multitude of spiders were living underneath the 12-inch polyester and wool mesh, their spindly legs all spilling out as soon as daylight hit the abode. Harry eventually found his friend sitting in the kitchen with Sirius, who had made him several cups of tea.

While it was hard work at first, in time they soon grew satisfied to see how it paid off; the walls having returned to their olive green color and actual sunlight streaming into the room, the space clear of the strewn junk—crumpled papers, broken down furniture, rusty jewelry and tattered paintings—and it's corners free of low-hanging cobwebs.

Now it was just the finishing touches as Harry wrapped a cloth around the bottom half of his face, watching Hermione and Ginny carried in large boxes that contained numerous spray-bottles, which were filled with some sort-of black liquid.

He picked a bottle up and carefully examined it.

"It's Doxycide," someone explained and Harry looked behind to see Mrs Weasley, pointing at the long, moss green velvet curtains that were buzzing as though swarming with invisible bees. "I've never seen an infestation this bad! What has that house-elf been doing for the last ten years?!"

Hermione's face was half-concealed by a tea towel but Harry distinctly saw her throw a reproachful look at Mrs Weasley.

"Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage —"

"You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," said Sirius, who had just entered the room carrying a bloodstained bag of what appeared to be dead rats.

"I've just been feeding Buckbeak," he added, in reply to Harry's enquiring look. "I keep him upstairs in my mother's bedroom. Anyway… this writing desk…"

Sirius dropped the bag onto an armchair and walked around the cabinet Mrs Weasley had moved into the corner. As he bent over the cabinet shook, quick but a little too violently for anyone to miss or ignore, even if they weren't looking.

"Well Molly, I'm pretty sure this is a Boggart," said Sirius, peering through the keyhole, "but you're right, perhaps we ought to let Mad-Eye have a shifty at it before we let it out— knowing my mother, it could be something much worse… "

"Right you are, Sirius," said Mrs Weasley.

It was rather irking to hear them talk. They both spoke in such alien, polite tones that it felt a completely new dialect of English, a language that kept their voices so light, so careful and delicate that it could've frosted several cupcakes. Harry and the others had spent enough time with this strangeness, it only made everything more obvious and all the more clear what weighed so heavily in Sirius and Mrs Weasley's heads.

But soon and thankfully, dashing the awkward air, a loud, clanging bell sounded from downstairs—followed at once by the cacophony of screams and wails.

"I keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" said Sirius exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room. They heard him thundering down the stairs as Mrs Black's screeches echoed through the house once more:

"STAIN'S OF DISHONOUR, FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BLOOD TRAITORS, CHILDREN OF FILTH!"

Cedric quickly shut the door much to Harry's regret—he couldn't hear any of the conversation that might've been exchanged downstairs—while Mrs Weasley very quickly ordered them about, flipping through the pages of Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests and shouting "George, move the chair there"'s and "Ginny, stay away from the curtains" and "Please Hermione, just let Crookshanks out!".

A few minutes later, they had spread out into a makeshift firing line facing the windows, Mrs Weasley slightly in front; encouraging them to be trigger-happy with their bottles of Doxycide as they sprayed the room at varying speeds.

Harry, who had been squeezing hesitantly and almost lazily, had been spraying only a few seconds when a fully-grown Doxy came soaring out of a fold in the material, shiny beetle-like wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, it's fairy-like body covered with thick black hair and it's four tiny fists clench with fury. Thankfully—or rather unfortunately for itself—it flew straight at Harry's nozzle and froze midair, falling with a loud thunk! to the floor and it's small body covered in the little black droplets of Doxycide spray. Careful to still be gentle, Harry plucked the Doxy from the floor and dropped it into the bucket beside his feet.

"Fred, what are you doing?" Mrs Weasley suddenly said. "Spray that at once and throw it away!"

Harry looked over and saw Fred holding a struggling Doxy in his hand. He promptly sprayed it in the face, causing it to faint, and made a show of throwing it into the bucket; but as soon as Mrs Weasley turned, he pocketed it with a wink. Beside Harry, Cedric crept up.

"They've been wanting to experiment with Doxy venom for their Skeeving Snackboxes." he said under his breath.

Spraying two more Doxy's, George came over and quietly muttered, "Skiving Snackboxes Cedric, get it right!"

"What are Skiving Snackboxes?" Harry asked, just out of the corner of his mouth.

"Range of sweets to make you ill," George whispered, keeping a wary eye on Mrs Weasley's back. "Not seriously ill, mind, just ill enough to get you out of a class when you feel like it. Fred and I have been developing them this summer. They're double-ended, color-coded chews. If you eat the orange half of the Puking Pastilles, you throw up. Moment you've been rushed out of the lesson for the hospital wing, you swallow the purple half—"

"—which restores you to full fitness, enabling you to pursue the leisure activity of your own choice during an hour that would otherwise have been devoted to unprofitable boredom.' That's what we're putting on the adverts, anyway," whispered Fred, who had edged over out of Mrs Weasley's line of vision and was no sweeping a few stray Doxy's from the floor and adding them to his pocket.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to pass on testing this time," Cedric said firmly.

"Testing?" Harry said, eyes wide.

"Alongside Fred and I, Cedric here has graciously lent us his own body for the past few days—for research purposes, of course."

"And, what have you found out?"

"Erm.. well none of us can stop puking for long enough to swallow the purple end." George admitted.

"But!" Fred said, jumping in. "The Fainting Fancies, the Nosebleed Nougat are both basically functional and more pleasant to experience than we realized."

"Plus the results are great! Mum thought we'd been duelling... "

In unison, the four boys swivelled their heads slightly to look at Mrs Weasley who was quite busy, advising Ron on how to firmly hold the bottle in his hand.

"Jokeshop's still on, then?" Harry muttered, pretending to adjust the nozzle on his spray.

"Well, we haven't had a chance to get premises yet," said Fred, dropping his voice even lower as Mrs Weasley mopped her brow with her scarf before returning to the attack, "So we're running it as a mail-order service at the moment. We put advertisements in the Daily Prophet last week."

"All thanks to your kindness, Harry," said George, "And don't fret … Mum hasn't got a clue about anything! She stopped reading the Daily Prophet, since it just kept telling lies about you two and Dumbledore."

Harry grinned. He felt strangely proud that the tournament prize money was being used in this way.

"And you, a Hogwarts Prefect and a Champion, are okay with this?" Harry asked, glancing at Cedric.

He gave a slight shrug.

"I did tell you to do whatever with the money… Besides, it's either that I can sort-of control their movements now or let them loose and be reporting about it later. I know full well, I can't stop anything this point," Cedric said, and he shook his spray bottle with a wry grin.

"Besides, the people want what the people want!" he said, but it was too loud; Mrs Weasley whipping around with a dangerous expression on her face. The four boys promptly halted in their conversation and muffled laughter as they dispersed in opposite directions.

The de-Doxying of the curtains took most of the morning.
It was past midday when Mrs Weasley finally removed her protective scar, sank into a sagging armchair and sprang up again with a cry of disgust, having sat on the bag of dead rats. The curtains were no longer buzzing; they hung limp and damp from the intensive spraying. At the foot of them unconscious Doxy's lay crammed in the bucket beside a bowl of their black eggs, at which Crookshanks was now sniffing and Fred and George were shooting covetous looks.

As they crept towards the bucket, the clanging doorbell rang again.

"It's Mundungus!" Hermione cried as she peered through the window. "Oh but… why's he brought all those cauldrons?"

Everyone looked over at Mrs Weasley.

"Stay here," she said firmly, snatching up a bag of rats as Mrs Black's screeches started up again from down below. "I'll bring up some sandwiches."

"Ron wasn't he talking to you about picking up dodgy cauldron's at dinner the other night?" Hermione asked. Everyone gathered behind her and watched as Mundungus tried to heave a large sack—oddly shaped as if a bunch of dodgy cauldrons had just been stuffed inside—up the steps.

"Blimey! Mum won't like that…" Fred said, making his way over to the door. As true to his words, when he opened the door, there was an explosion of sound from downstairs.

"WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!" All of them could hear exactly what Mrs Weasley was shouting at the top of her lungs.

"Ah, I so love hearing Mum shouting at someone else!" said Fred, with a satisfied smile on his face, he opened the door an inch or so to allow Mrs Weasley's voice to permeate the room better, "It makes such a nice change."

"—COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, AS IF WE HAVEN'T GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT WITHOUT YOU DRAGGIN STOLEN CAULDRONS INTO THE HOUSE-"

Sirius came up the stairs with his hands up, head shaking and his expression communicating that he did not want to be involved in whatever the hell was going on downstairs.

"Why don't I replace Molly as your supervisor for the hour?" he smiled, and as he glanced behind him, his pace quickened as he abruptly shot forward.

"Close the door, close the door!" he hissed as he rushed past, and after blinking dumbly once, Fred rushed to quickly do as Sirius said, but not quick enough as one small body squeezed into the drawing-room.

As Sirius groaned behind him, Harry came closer and found that it was actually house-elf, a dirty rag wrapped around its spindly body like a loincloth, it's skin sunken and clinging to it's tiny bones like it was one fit too big. The elf's eyes and bat-like ears drooped with age but it's gaze was sharp, wary—its large and fleshy nose sniffing around like snout as it looked about the room. The elf took absolutely no notice of Harry and the rest—acting as though it could not see them—while it shuffled hunchbacked, slowly and doggedly towards the far end of the room, all while muttering under its breath in a hoarse, deep voice like a bullfrog.

"... smells like a drain and criminal to boot, but she's no better—nasty old blood traitor with her brats messing up my mistress's house, oh, my poor mistress, if she knew… If she knew the scum they've let into her house, what would she say to old Kreacher, oh, the shame of it, Mudbloods and werewolves and traitors and thieves, poor old Kreacher, what can he do…"

"Hello, Kreacher," said Fred very loudly, closing the door with a snap. The house-elf froze in his tracks. His muttering stopped while he gave a very pronounced and very unconvincing start of surprise.

"Kreacher did not see young master," he said, turning around and bowing to Fred. Still facing the carpet, he added, perfectly audible, "Nasty little brat of a blood traitor it is."

"Sorry?" said George. "Didn't catch that last bit."

"Kreacher said nothing," said the elf, with a second bow to George, adding in a clear undertone, "And there's it's twin, unnatural little beasts they are."

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or be offended.

"Kreacher." he heard Cedric's stern voice and saw him put his arm slightly out, in front of George. Kreacher paused and bowed, lower than he had before, to Cedric.

"Young master Diggory," he said. There were no additional comments as he straightened up, but he eyed the rest of them malevolently. And when he was apparently convinced that they couldn't hear, he continued to mutter.

"... and there's the Mudblood, standing there bold as brass, oh, if my mistress, knew, oh how she'd cry, and there's a new boy, Kreacher doesn't know his name. What is he doing here? Kreacher doesn't know…"

"This is Harry, Kreacher," said Hermione tentatively. "Harry Potter."

Kreacher's pale eyes widened and he muttered faster and more furiously than ever.

"The Mudblood is talking to Kreacher as though she is my friend, if Kreacher's mistress saw him in such company, oh, what would she say—"

"Don't call her a Mudblood!" said Ron and Ginny together, very angrily.

"Don't!" Hermione said, grabbing both of their arms. "He doesn't know what he's saying."

"Like hell he doesn't!" Fred said, eyeing Kreacher down. The elf stared hard right back at him.

Harry was shocked. Other than their own, he had never seen a house-elf look at someone else in the eyes, let alone openly glare right at them. There was, of course, Dobby but all the house-elves at Hogwarts seemed to be of a shy disposition; never openly interacting with the students unless they were directly in the kitchen.

"What are you doing here, Kreacher?" Cedric asked, and Harry noticed that his stern tone had disappeared, replaced by an even harsher edge. Kreacher looked towards him and once again, his eyes lowered to the floor.

"Kreacher is cleaning," he said evasively, his tiny hands grabbed at each other.

"A likely story," a voice said behind Harry. Sirius was glowering at the house-elf who suddenly flung himself into a low bow, his snout-like nose touching the ground as soon as he saw Sirius.

"Stand up straight," said Sirius impatiently. "Now, what are you up to?"

"Kreacher is cleaning," the elf repeated. "Kreacher lives to serve the Noble House of Black—"

"And it's getting blacker every day, it's filthy," said Sirius.

"Master always liked his little joke," said Krecher, bowing again and continuing in an undertone, "Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart — "

"My mother didn't have a heart, Kreacher," snapped Sirius. "She kept herself alive out of pure spite." And they continued to talk like this, a rally of Sirius's cold and curt replies and Kreacher's polite responses and under-the-breath commentary. Like a repeat of Harry's first night, everyone's head swivelled from Kreacher lamenting about Mrs Black and Sirius's sins to Sirius's consistent demands to know why he was really here.

Eventually Harry noticed that Kreacher was edging towards the far wall, where a tapestry that looked immensely old, hung in the darker corner of the room.

"Mistress will never forgive Kreacher if the tapestry was thrown out. Seven centuries it's been in the family, Kreacher must save it, Kreacher must not let Master and the blood traitor and the brats destroy it—" the elf suddenly said.

"Ah, I thought it might be that," said Sirius, casting a disdainful look at the opposite wall. "She'll have put another Permanent Sticking Charm on the back of it, I don't doubt but if I can get rid of it, I certainly will. Now, go away, Kreacher."

It seemed Kreacher did not dare disobey a direct order, nevertheless, the look he gave Sirius as he shuffled out past him was full of deepest loathing as he muttered all the way out of the room.

"—comes back from Azkaban ordering Kreacher around, oh, my poor mistress, what would she say if she saw the house name; scum living in it, her treasures thrown out," and at this Harry saw Kreacher reach into a bag of the trinkets and objects they had collected from the room, and take something out before he continued muttering. "She swore he was no son of hers and he's back, they say he's a murderer too—"

"Take whatever you're holding out of the room and I will be a murderer!" Sirius snarled, waving the door shut on the elf.

"Sirius, he's not right in the head!" Hermione pleaded. "I don't think he realizes we can hear him."

"He's been alone too long," said Sirius, he stalked up to Kreacher who stood there hunched and frozen, "taking mad orders from my mother's portrait and talking to himself, but he was always a foul little—"

"I'm sure Kreacher could have this ring right, Sirius?" Cedric suddenly said. Everyone turned to see that he was holding out something in the open palm of his hands; a ring with the Black crest as it's insignia.

"It's not cursed or anything important.. just a memento for him." Cedric said nodding at the elf.

"You're sure?" Sirius said carefully, he stopped and walked over to Cedric, picking the ring up from his hand and rolling it in between his fingers.

"I checked," Cedric said. Then he angled his head, "If we appease Kreacher, then it'll be an easier time cleaning." he said quietly, taking care to speak in a low voice; even Harry, who was beside him, wasn't completely sure of what exact words he had said.

But fortunately Sirius, having heard him clearly, sighed and waved his hand in reply.

"Do whatever you want." he said, and he gave the ring back before he walked towards the tapestry, sizing it up and promptly ignoring whatever was going behind him at that moment.

Cedric smiled at Kreacher, and gestured him closer, before kneeling down to his height.

"I bet he'll let you barter and keep more stuff if you leave us and the rubbish bags alone." Cedric said, hardness still there but his voice was not unkind. "And don't worry — we won't throw anything away without first coming to you."

He held out the ring on his palm, waiting as slowly, slowly, Kreacher took the band and clutched it with both of his tiny hands; as if he was holding onto extremely valuable gem.

Kreacher looked up and stared at Cedric's soft smile, before finally nodding.

"My thanks, young master," he said and he shuffled out of the room and shut the door. There was a moment's silence that followed the click of the door. Fred then slung an arm over Cedric's neck.

"Wow! He didn't even call you traitor, filth, or scum!" he remarked, and before Harry could hear Cedric's reply, he noticed Hermione creep beside him.

"It seems that Kreacher really likes him." she whispered, "I don't know how, but a few days after they first met, Kreacher stopped talking in that... second voice, whenever he spoke with Cedric."

"It's puzzling, but leave it to charming Cedric to enchant dusty old house-elves, eh?" Ron quipped. He was promptly thwacked by Hermione's hand.

"Ron!"

"What?! He called you a mudblood!"

"Yeah, he's got a point," Harry admitted, but before Hermione could indignantly respond, the door re-opened with a frazzled Mrs Weasley now in the doorway.

"I just saw Kreacher walking off with a ring, is that—?"

"Yes Molly, Cedric thought we could let him keep some non-magical items as mementos." Sirius said turning around. "I'm not against the idea if it means he'll be less annoying in the future."

"I see, well, let's not think about that now; Mundungus is making lunch downstairs for us, come on!" and Mrs Weasley gestured everyone to come with her as she turned around, walking towards the stairs.

"Mundungus is cooking? For us ?" Ginny said, following behind her.

"As payment for us housing the cauldrons." Mrs Weasley replied, stoically. Fred, George, Ron, Harry and Hermione filtered out of the room, and as Cedric began to follow too, he felt a hand hold him back. It was Sirius.

"Are you pure-blooded by any chance?" he asked, carefully, but before Cedric could answer; Sirius seemed to think twice about it and sighed.

"Ah sorry, don't, er—don't answer that, it doesn't matter," he ran his hands through his hair. "You probably just remind him of Regulus."

"Regulus?" Cedric echoed.

"My idiot brother." Sirius said, and as his gaze swept the floor, the tone of his voice roughening; Cedric took the hint. He bid Sirius goodbye and walked out the door, without realizing that Harry was hiding beside it, propped against the wall—having heard everything.
After a moment of hesitation, he took a breath and decisively swung into the room, walking beside Sirius who stared at the ancient, sun-dulled tapestry with intent; thumb tucked underneath his chin while the side of his finger pressed to his lips in thought.

"Sirius." Harry said. Sirius jolted.

"Oh!" he said, staring at Harry, "Did you forget something?"

Harry took a breath, "Erm... sorry to ask now of all times but... I think you owed me a conversation about your family?"

Sirius's expression, which was initially appeased and open, faltered at Harry's words. He looked at the ground again with a soft but forced smile.

"Ah,"