The next morning, Rose and Harry woke up at the same time and made their way inside the house, letting Sirius and Remus sleep off the previous night. Sirius had partied a lot, enjoying his new freedom and having the kids with him while Remus needed to rest after the previous full moon. Remus had spent most of the previous night trying to keep busy so that a new and young member of the Order, Tonks, couldn't talk to him. She seemed very interested in him and it was funny to watch Remus' reactions to her presence.
"How did you two sleep?" Molly asked them with a smile as soon as they entered.
The living room and the kitchen already looked perfect, as though no party had taken place there the previous night.
"Perfectly well. Thank you." Rose replied.
"Much better now that I don't hear Uncle Vernon snoring." Harry added.
"Except that now Sirius talks in his sleep, but he says funny things so it's okay." Rose joked.
"Good. Here, help yourselves to breakfast before the others wake up. If Ron puts his nose in this plate of sausages, there won't be any left in seconds." She joked just in time to see Fred and George entering the kitchen.
She was surprised to see them awake this early during the summer break but she didn't question it.
"Morning everyone." George waved at the room who greeted him back.
"Good morning mom. Good morning Harry. And an absolutely brilliant morning to you Gorgeous. I do hope that your night was pleasant, peaceful and filled with beautiful and colorful dreams." Fred declared, making George smile and Rose blush.
Using the fact that he was now able to use magic outside of school, Fred made a single red rose appear and gave it to Harry's twin sister with a great smile. The girl blushed but accepted the flower happily.
"Fred, honestly!" Molly rolled her eyes while trying to hide her smile.
"Thank you, the rose smells wonderful but I do have a name, you know." Rose told him while Harry filled her glass with juice.
"I know, one just as pretty as you, just as delicate as this flower's petals and, I'm sure, just as prickly as these thorns." Fred nodded.
Rose didn't know if he was flirting or trying to be funny. Did he notice that she was attracted to him and decided to make fun of her for it or did he actually like her and decided to flirt? She didn't know and decided to ignore it for now.
"Thanks." She blushed while Harry smiled with George.
"Ginny should be down soon, I heard noise coming from her bedroom when we passed her door. She's probably getting dressed." George informed his mother who nodded and prepared a place for her daughter.
"Trying to look pretty for Harry." Fred added.
"What? She doesn't like me anymore, I think she even has a boyfriend." Harry shook his head, thinking for the first time that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Ginny did like him this way.
"Sure, of course." Fred and George replied with a knowing smile, making Harry think about the younger Weasley sibling in a slightly different manner.
"Your father already left for work, he's hoping to come home early enough tonight to play a game of Quidditch with you all." Molly informed them.
The previous night, Harry and Rose learned that Arthur Weasley had gotten a promotion at work and that he was now at the head of an all new and important department. They also learned that Percy had left the house a couple of days before that promotion was announced, claiming that his father's reputation at work was bad for him and the advancement he was planning on getting. He had gotten hired as Fudge's secretary and thought that being too close to his family, his poor family, would ruin his good work, or so he told his parents, breaking their mother's heart a little. He still allowed his mother to visit him, though his father and siblings refused to make the effort before Percy apologized and changed his behavior.
At that moment, Serenity, Rose's phoenix entered the kitchen with Hedwige and they both landed in front of their owners to get fed. Rose smiled tenderly at her bird and gave her a piece of toast and a sausage before the bird thanked her with a small soothing song.
"Hedwige and Serenity seem to be getting along well." Harry commented as they all witnessed the two birds sharing the sausage.
"Yes, it's nice to see." Rose nodded, doing her best not to think about Fred's weirdly flirting behavior when he first arrived.
"They've been eating together every meal all week." Molly informed them.
"Hedwige watched yesterday as Serenity played with the gnomes." Georges informed Rose.
.
While Rose and Harry did some homework that morning, Dobby and Winky had come to get their instructions from Sirius regarding the house and its cleaning. Dobby seemed extremely happy to be able to help the Order and he nearly lost it when Harry came over to greet him, like he would a friend and offered him a cookie. It made Sirius laugh and he invited Dobby to drop by as often as he wanted which pleased the elf greatly.
"He treats you like Fred and Georges treat me, it's so funny." Sirius told Harry in a whisper.
"All I did was offer for him to sit down the first time I met him, when he tried to warn me about Lucius Malfoy's plans for my second year." Harry shrugged his shoulders.
Winky was much calmer, looking almost depressed though she seemed to be trying to hide it and act professional. Dobby explained to Sirius that she hated her freedom, that she just wanted to find a new family to belong to, to take care of. After promising to see what he could do about it, Sirius let them go, deciding that it was also time for him to introduce Harry and Rose to the house elf he had inherited from his dead mother so they'd see that they weren't all like Dobby.
When the man called for his elf, Harry almost wanted to laugh at Kreacher's behavior. He acted like he would if he had to serve the Malfoy's or the Dursley's. It was almost funny. Sirius ordered his reluctant elf to help Dobby and Winky as much as possible and to obey Rose and Harry like he did him before he let him go back to the house.
"Sirius, wouldn't it be better if we all went to the house one day, to help you sort through everything? I know Dobby doesn't mind popping by 12 times a day to ask you questions but it would save us all some serious time if we went and helped you look at everything." Rose suggested at the end of the afternoon.
"There are a lot of dangerous things in that house Rosie." Sirius shook his head.
"Then we stick to the safer places, like the bedrooms, and we're careful. We make several groups with an adult to overlook each group…" Rose replied.
"That might not be a bad idea, even if I hate it. I'll talk to Dumbledore and Molly, we'll go tomorrow. If we all go, it will be faster, I just hope Molly's kids won't mind helping." Sirius agreed.
"I doubt they'll mind. Ron's my friend and he'll help me, Ginny seems helpful as for Fred and Georges, one word from you and they'll spend the rest of summer acting like your personnel house elves so they'll probably be happy to be able to walk upon the grounds that you grew up in." Harry replied.
"It will be like a pilgrimage for them: Padfoot, the early years." Rose chuckled, making Sirius chuckle as well.
"You're right." Sirius nodded.
"We should do something about Winky though, she looks so sad…" Rose sighted.
"Well, I feel for her, sort of, but I'm not binding her to us. I already have one house elf I don't want, it's plenty. And I was only able to convince Remus to come and live with us with the promise to let him do the housework because he feels bad about not being able to buy more for the house. Getting a house elf to do the work would be insulting to him." Sirius replied.
"What about Ms Weasley? She's all alone to take care of everything here, I'm sure she could do with an elf. I wonder why she doesn't have one. I never really asked Ron but once he said that she wished she had one to take care of the laundry." Harry wondered.
"It's expensive to go through the paperwork to link a house elf. She probably can't afford that but you have a point. She's done a lot for you, Harry, treated you like one of her own and she's helped Remus and I a lot since we've arrived. Maybe we could do this to help her, as a surprise." Sirius nodded.
"Could you?" Rose asked, an hopeful look on her face.
"I'll go and see if I can get it done quickly, they all want to help me out to make up for those 12 years in prison I had to go through. You two stay here. If she asks where I am, tell her I've gone to my mother's house to give Dobby and Winky some directions." Sirius told them before he ran out and disappeared, leaving the Potter twins alone in the tent.
"So, Harry, I was wondering… what do you think of Fred and Georges?" Rose asked her brother, trying to act like it was an innocent question.
"They're cool, funny. Kind of what I'd expect a big brother to be. Why?"
"I… It's nothing." She changed her mind.
"You're not… You're not about to tell me you like them or something… Right?" he asked her, looking embarrassed.
"I kind of like Fred." She admitted.
"Why him? Georges and him are identical." Harry asked her.
"I have no idea." She shrugged her shoulders.
"If you're looking for advice, you're talking to the wrong person. My only crush was dating Cedric." He replied.
"No, I… I just… I guess I wanted to know if you'd be opposed to that idea."
"No… I don't think so. I mean, as long as you're happy. I'm only a few minutes older, Rose, I'm not going to play overprotective big brother, not unless you start dating Malfoy." Harry told her with a smile.
"Very funny. Thank you. I don't even know if he likes me though."
"You could always ask him, you know, be open and direct, something girls usually know nothing about." Harry suggested.
"I can't do that!" She exclaimed, looking scandalized that he even thought that.
"Silly me. You're not about to ask me to ask him, right?" Harry asked her.
"No, of course not… Not him… You could ask Ron what he thinks, or Ginny, or Georges…" She suggested.
"Why can't you ask Ginny? You two are friends now, right?" He asked her.
"I know, but please, as my big brother, could you do this for me? You know ask subtly, kind of pretend I don't know you're asking…" She suggested with pleading eyes.
"Fine, I'll try to do it." He finally agreed.
"You're acting like you'd rather face another dragon." She chuckled.
"That's because that's the case. Now help me with this, I'd like to give Snape a heart attack by having good grades in his class next year and since it's one of your best subjects..." Harry replied, making his sister laugh.
"Every subject is my best subject, Harry. Except Quidditch, which is why I don't play." She replied, teasing him.
"You'll give Hermione a run for her money." Harry chuckled.
"Now back to potions, Harry. I think you're only so bad at it because Snape is so mean to you. You have to look at it from a different perspective. Potions is like cooking, you just have to follow the recipe to have good enough grades at school, then, with time, just like cooking, you instinctively know how to improve a potion by adding something or trading an ingredient for another or by crushing something instead of cutting it. Like when you put brown sugar in cookies instead of the normal one because you know it'll taste better." Rose explained.
"I know, it's just hard to do anything with Snape glaring at me, Malfoy throwing things in my cauldron and everything else." He shook his head.
"A simple spell can protect your cauldron and as for the glaring or comments, you just have to be strong, ignore them. Our occlumency exercises should help a bit with that." Rose argued.
"I'll try. Now let's go back to this before I change my mind and find an excuse to run away." Harry smiled at his sister.
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Lorelei Candice Black