Chapter 35: Cherubic Intent

The walk to Cordelia Bulstrode's house was one taken through idyllic country lanes. It could be a lovely walk. The sun was shining, the day, not quite warm, but warm enough.

But Hermione didn't feel warm. She walked with a hand holding the forearm of a Disillusioned Sirius. She couldn't even feel the warmth of his skin. He'd thrown a pair of overrobes on to keep his arms covered beyond his T-shirt. She wished he'd change her grip to one that held his hand, but she didn't think he'd ever allow that again.

They found a place to sit in the dip around a thin trickle of a creek, taking spots on dry rocks poking out amidst the velvet grass, where they could see the pretty cottage one branch of the Bulstrode family reserved for the younger adults in it. Sirius grumbled something as he sat. It began with 'Impractical,' was followed by the sound of fabric being wrestled past stone, then ended in words unintelligible to Hermione.

She wished she could smile. Any other watch they'd been on, she'd have smiled. He needed a jacket that didn't go past his belt for outings. And there, above his belt, was where Hermione's mind lingered for a while, running through strong back, square shoulders, that little trail of hair on a very firm belly… Then, when that got too much, the winged keys threatening to reappear and clang in her insides, on a smile that could spread slowly through his face, and eyes that would crinkle. She didn't try to stop it. What was the point? Sirius didn't know her thoughts.

Hermione's thoughts vanished an hour later when a woman walked out of the house. She caught sight of the woman's face for a good moment, and sunk back on her uncomfortable seat.

'Cordelia's sister,' she breathed to Sirius.

Cordelia's sister didn't look too different from Cordelia. And was a fairly passionate gardener, though, the passion was more aggravation than a pottering love of tending to plants. The woman hauled out weeds with a passion that sent them flying over her shoulder to land, scattering dirt, on the grass behind her. She chopped back shrubs and trees with great slashes of her wand and cut the grass with vigorous blasts that sent grass bits flying a good dozen feet away from her.

It was more as though she was waging a battle against the garden than tending to it. Thankfully, Cordelia Bulstrode's sister didn't seem to believe creek beds needed to be chopped. Hermione was ready to run anyway, just in case.

'To be honest,' Sirius said quietly, 'that's how I'd garden if I had to.'

He had a grip on Hermione's arm. She figured it had a lot to do with him intending to yank her out of the woman's way if needed. She was wearing long sleeves too. She couldn't feel his hand well through the fabric. He let go after Cordelia's sister had gone back inside, done with her decimation.

They stretched their legs by walking the perimeter quietly and carefully after Hermione's backside had gotten too sore for her to keep ignoring it. Their lunch was eaten further away from the house, where no one would see any movement, so they could eat without needing to be too sneaky about it.

Watches passed more quickly when they had something to talk about. That was saying something, as all watches felt very long. Today's dragged painfully, Hermione incapable of finding any conversation to start.

Sirius achieved it, though, sometime in the mid-afternoon.

'I think Kreacher looked after me more than my parents did,' he breathed, just loud enough for Hermione to hear, out of the blue. 'When I was very little.'

That seemed more than plausible to Hermione. Her impression of his parents didn't include them bouncing a baby to sleep, dealing with teething, and changing nappies.

'I wouldn't be surprised if he did,' she whispered back. 'I can see your parents relying on a servant for that.'

There was silence for a time, then Hermione asked, 'Do you remember it?'

'No.' Sirius invited the silence this time, before adding, 'I remember my tutors. Spent most of my time with them before Hogwarts. But not Kreacher being involved.'

'In raising you,' Hermione finished for him, feeling it needed to be said. 'Well, perhaps there is something of an unconscious recollection there, all the same. People who don't grow up with tenderness tend not to be able to give it, and that doesn't describe you.'

She may have overstepped. Sirius was quiet for long enough that Hermione thought she had. He didn't address the notion that he'd be a different person without Kreacher, though.

'He wasn't a guardian, Hermione,' Sirius whispered. 'Not as I remember it. He'd tattle on me to my parents more than my brother did.'

Hermione changed her position on the rock so that the ridge poked into her other buttock.

'Is anyone perfect?' she whispered back determinedly. 'He is what he was made to be, and that's a dedicated servant. You know that as well as I do. Kreacher's a bit more wilful than most house elves, but he had to do what your parents wanted him to. Be your carer when you were a baby – but be their dedicated slave always. I'm not surprised he passed your misdeeds on – he was supposed to.'

'An elf that wants to defy their family finds ways to do it.'

'Sirius…' Hermione trailed off, glaring at a rock across from her before casting a hasty look around to see if she'd missed anything she should be watching out for. 'I… look, you were… a disruption in your family's harmony…'

'What?'

'Kreacher was born to your family,' Hermione hissed. 'He grew up with their ideas – their values, and took them on. You were different – the odd one out. I'm not saying you were wrong to be – not at all – but you brought discord to the family. Kreacher probably did care a lot about the baby you were, but you grew up, and made a stir. Kreacher likes people who are nice to him! You saw him as a member of your family, and hated him for it. Imagine caring about a child who grew up to hate you and went against everything the family thought and everyone in it. It would tear him in two directions, and your family's direction was stronger – had more years and more people in it – than yours!

'There's no opposing view now. Kreacher has to listen, and I do think he's seeing our views as… well, I doubt he's sure they're correct – house elves aren't allowed to develop their own sense of morality – but they're unanimous, and they're not so dissimilar to Regulus's – they're not onerous to him. There's harmony, and I honestly think that pleases him. But the problem he had with you was that you undermined his ability to be servant to one cohesive unit – and that was what Kreacher was designed to be!'

Hermione let that hang for all of a second before she hastened to add, 'But I'm not saying I don't get it. I just want you to understand – you gave me that book, you know Kreacher isn't free to be – he was designed – created into something wizards wanted him to be, and that doesn't include being allowed to work out for himself what is right and what is wrong. He just… tries to care for his family as best he can.

'And I'm…' Hermione's whisper had lost its heat, 'not saying you have to think he did the right thing.' But it'd be good if you could forgive him. Hermione left that bit unsaid.

Sirius didn't respond for long enough that Hermione had time to reflect on the exchange. She probably could have said all of that in a… less combative way. It was just that she was so sick of it – why couldn't witches and wizards wise up about house elves? It was pathetic!

'House elves are capable of both loyalty and defiance,' Sirius retorted finally.

'Yes they are,' Hermione agreed, exasperated but keeping her tone soft. 'They defy those they aren't loyal to. But their loyalty isn't to a self-defined code of right and wrong, it's to people – and they aren't capable of holding split loyalties. Kreacher is dedicated, and you can't dedicate yourself completely to two disparate groups. He may have loved you when you were little, but you split his loyalties, and he stuck with the dedication he knew and was rewarded for – the one, frankly, that any slave would pick.'

That ended the conversation, Sirius not responding at all. A part of Hermione was glad. She felt like she was dealing with a very stubborn and childish remnant of Sirius: determined to stick to the idea he hadn't been wrong to dislike the elf. And Hermione didn't know how many more ways she could say exactly the same thing.

But the longer the silence lasted, the more Hermione wished to hear his voice again. Starting the day in silence had been bad, returning to it was worse.

It took her a long time to come up with and then voice something to say.

'You said you and James travelled?' Hermione's whisper sounded tentative and like the lame attempt it was. 'Where'd you go, other than Germany?'

'Started and ended in Germany… Just around the Continent, and down into Morocco for a bit… nothing too far.'

Hermione swallowed as the silence reappeared, but Sirius didn't leave her to be the only one interested in a conversation.

'Spent the longest times in Holland and Tuscany,' Sirius reprised, his tone a little warmer. 'Tuscany came after Ibiza, so we spent the first week there mostly sleeping. We weren't in Ibiza that long, but I don't think we got much sleep at all – met a group in the share house we stayed at, and they didn't much care to rest.

'We hadn't originally planned to visit Tuscany, but it seemed a welcome break after that, and it was a good choice. Nice place. Great food… Not that we'd really planned the trip much at all. We just stopped off wherever took our fancy, asked people we met where they were going, 'cause they usually had a pretty solid idea of where was good, and that directed the trip. Stayed in a hippie commune – that was interesting. Slept for a few days in a hut on a beach somewhere… where was that?' Sirius thought about it for a moment. 'France,' he decided. 'I think… Not Greece – we slept on a balcony in Greece. Marvellous view of a caldera.'

'It sounds very… free,' Hermione whispered. Insanely free. Not sure where you were going to lay your head at night seemed… nerve-wracking.

'It was fun.' Sirius took a breath. 'Met a lot of interesting people… ran into a bit of trouble in Portugal.'

'Got lost?'

'You can't get lost when you have no real direction. No: the bloke we stayed with stole my bike. Twat. So we nicked his broom and chased him down. I probably shouldn't go back to Portugal,' Sirius went on, and Hermione did think there was a touch of humour in his whisper. 'I think I'm considered on the run from the authorities there for duelling in the street and then escaping capture on a flying motorbike.'

'Ooh… Sirius!'

Sirius made a noise like a half-laugh.

'We took refuge in a hostel in Barcelona. That was a highlight. There was a man there who lived in a shack on the roof. Spent half his time high as a kite, but would come down in the evenings and demonstrate some kind of acrobatic… something. He was very good at it.'

'What about Lily? Wouldn't she have missed James?'

'James wanted to bring her along… We'd been talking about a trip like it for years, just the two of us. I reckon I'd have come 'round – just no idea how we'd have fit her on the bike – but Lily was accepted into her potions course and that started halfway through the summer. We gave her one of our two-way mirrors and James kept in touch.'

'What about Remus?'

'Left him to look after my flat. He wasn't about to wing full moons in unfamiliar places, especially when we didn't have a set itinerary. Lily might have put up with that… maybe. There was no chance Remus would.'

Hermione, too, had done a bit of travelling, though all of it with her parents. They had travels enough to compare – Sirius with enough stories – to finish the watch without a long return of silence. Cordelia Bulstrode and anything suspicious made no reappearance, and they left as it got dark with no more than a report about her sister and the ferocious way she attacked a garden.

Walking beside him on the lane, Hermione threw caution to the wind and slipped her fingers into Sirius's hand. She stared worriedly at the road ahead for no more than a couple seconds before Sirius's hand closed around hers. Hermione nearly breathed a sigh of relief, but held it in. Though it sent a zing through her arm, she'd like it to be a casual comfort.

Sirius held her hand all the way back to their Disapparition point, and let her Apparate them to Kingsley's.

'Angry?' Kingsley asked when they gave the report.

'I… couldn't say,' Hermione answered. 'Has… anyone seen her garden with less… vigour?'

Kingsley scratched his bald pate.

'I doubt anyone's seen her garden at all. I'll check the notes.'

It seemed unnecessary. Cordelia's sister, if she was, could be angry about anything.

Sirius wasn't around to help out the next time the Potions students turned up. He said he was going to check on Remus, but Hermione was pretty sure he just liked playing with Teddy. He'd called Kreacher after lunch, the elf suddenly standing stock still as he collected Hermione's plate, before he muttered something about Sirius and Disapparated with a loud crack. He hadn't been gone long, cracking back into the kitchen just as Hermione was starting to really get worried. There had been no cause for alarm. Sirius had just called Kreacher to go numb Teddy's gums.

Hermione had filled six bottles with Blood-Replenishing Potion by the time they were thinking of calling it quits for the day. She corked them as the other three tucked into oatcakes and tea, their latest attempts at the potion still brewing. Harry's second attempt and Ron's third Hermione would add to the cabinet in the sitting room. They could always do with more Blood Replenishing Potion. From the looks of Ginny's potion… Hermione didn't think their stores were low enough to give the pale blue brew a try. The Blood-Replenishing Potion was supposed to be dark red in colour and smell like iron.

'Harry,' said Ron, wiping crumbs off his mouth, 'have you seen all of this place? Mum never let us go up to the fourth floor or into the attic. What's up there?'

'Your mother just didn't trust Buckbeak,' Hermione said, helping herself to a biscuit. 'She didn't want you getting hurt.'

'That's why she said I wasn't allowed up,' said Ginny, 'not Ron. She didn't want Ron or the twins up there because she didn't want to deal with them bothering Sirius when he was moping in his mother's room.'

'Well, they're both gone,' Ron said, waving another oatcake. 'I say we go have a look.'

'Sirius's mother's room isn't interesting,' Harry told him. 'It's just an empty room. Buckbeak scratched it a fair bit, but I think Kreacher's removed all the straw and… bits of rat.'

Ron looked disappointed.

'Is that all that's up there?' he asked. 'What about the attic?'

Hermione had never gone up into the attic, and despite living here for several months, had only been up to the fourth floor once – what felt like ages ago.

'There's another room,' Hermione provided, 'besides the attic. Or, at least, there's another door. I'd guess… it was Sirius's father's room.'

Ginny frowned at her.

'They slept in separate rooms?'

It didn't seem unlikely to Hermione.

'I don't think Sirius wants us up there…' Harry said, but it fell on deaf ears. Even Hermione was curious, though for reasons she wasn't about to share with the others. That was Sirius's tale to tell, if he wished to share it.

Harry and Ron corked their bottles of Blood Replenishing Potion. Ginny took one look at hers, sniffed, and Vanished the lot with a jab of her wand. She had, at least, mastered the Vanishing Charm non-verbally, and that was more than Hermione could say for Ron.

Ron leading, Harry following reluctantly behind, they headed up. Five flights was a lot to do in quick succession, and they were all a little on the breathy side when they reached the last landing.

It looked like the rest of the floors, just with fewer doors than most. Ginny tried the handle of the one by the stairs.

'Locked,' she said. She eyed the door. It led, quite obviously, to a narrow walled-off space against the common wall between Number 12 and Number 13. There were probably stairs behind it. 'Attic, you reckon? Wonder why it's locked…'

'Because,' Harry said, 'Sirius doesn't want us up there.'

'Why, though?' said Ginny, looking fascinated by the door. 'What's he hiding?'

'You remember the stuff we junked out of this place,' Harry said. 'It wasn't all harmless. If Sirius has locked it, it's because there's more like that up there.'

It was a fair assumption. Hermione could believe Sirius hadn't completely finished clearing out the house. The rooms they needed were safe from obstreperous objects.

Ron had opened the door to Sirius's mother's room. He shut it again after only a moment, disappointed. Hermione guessed that meant it was exactly as Harry had described it.

Ginny was eyeing Harry.

'You need a haircut,' she said.

Harry ran a hand through his overgrown hair.

'I know,' he said.

'Mum'll do it,' Ginny offered.

'Yeah…' Harry said, his eyes following Ron. 'I'll ask her.'

Ron had come back towards them. He pushed on the handle of the last door. It, too, was locked, but a simple Alohamora had Ron stepping into the room.

'Woah!' he said, looking up. 'Come look at this…'

Ginny was first to enter the room after him.

'It's massive!' she remarked, casting a look about the room. She followed Ron's gaze. 'Urgh…' she added.

Hermione stepped inside. She met the well-appointed room with abject distaste. It was L-shaped, very spacious, and furnished grandly in Slytherin colours highlighted by majestic gold in trims and shadowed by black and grey in the wallpaper around the Georgian fireplace. Two doors were fit into walls around a seating area before the fireplace. Hermione guessed one led into a bathroom that protruded into the bedroom, the other seemed to join this room with Walburga's. Old-fashioned folding privacy screens, patterned in paisley, separated what was probably something of a dressing area near the bed, and heavy grey curtains that seemed to be buzzing blocked most of the daylight.

Stepping onto a dark-coloured patterned rug that lay on top of the carpet, Hermione looked up as well.

On the ceiling, stretching to the cornices patterned with snakes and fleur-de-lis, was a mural. Hermione gaped at it, feeling sick. It depicted a brainless-looking centaur trapped by a score of armed wizards as cherubs – of all things – cheered and trumpeted the wizards on. Hermione looked away and found the themes of snakes and cherubs repeated in carvings in the bed's head and footboard and around the wooden edges of the folding screens. A frisson went down her spine.

Ginny had swept her finger over the surface of an end table.

'Kreacher doesn't clean in here,' she determined, holding up a finger swabbed with dust.

Ron tramped further into the room, the rug sending dust sparkling into one of the few beams of sunlight the curtains allowed in. His face scrunched up and he sneezed.

'Sirius said Kreacher wasn't as devoted to his father as he was to his mother,' Harry said. 'Maybe Kreacher doesn't care to clean in here.'

From the amount of dust in the room and the moth-eaten look of the fabric, Kreacher hadn't cared to clean the room for a very long time. If Hermione's guess was correct, it gave her something new to explain to Sirius about the elf. As unobtrusive as Kreacher could make himself appear, a servant of this house wouldn't have missed the fact that Orion Black mistreated his son.

'Maybe Kreacher hates cherubs…' Ron said, casting the bed a pointed look.

'It is… creepy,' said Ginny. 'Was… Sirius's dad the… romantic sort?'

She sounded doubtful.

'They're let's-kill-the-centaur Cherubs,' Ron said significantly, giving his sister raised eyebrows. 'You think that's romantic?'

Ginny just pulled a face and cast the ceiling mural a disgusted look.

Hermione thought the whole room was disturbing. She took a step away, wanting to leave, and spotted the shaft of light that shot from Ginny's wand into the rug Hermione had just stepped off of. Ginny was still looking up at the mural as though she hadn't cast any spell at all. Hermione noticed Ginny wasn't stood on the rug either, but Ron and Harry were.

Wary, Hermione cast Ginny a look. A cheeky smile twitched at Ginny's lips. She gave Hermione the shadow of a wink. Hermione took another step back as Ginny casually rounded the rug and joined her.

It took only a minute's wait. Ron went to take a step towards a cabinet and grunted, looking, surprised, down at his feet, as a line of sticky dark goo yanked his trainer back down onto the rug.

'What?' Ron cried, tugging his foot back up. The rug came with him, stretching, attached to the bottom of his shoe, before snapping his foot back, elastic, to its surface. 'It's gone funny!' Ron shouted, looking wildly up at Hermione for help. He tugged and twisted and lost balance, throwing both arms out and catching Harry on the back of his knee as he fell. Harry only managed to avoid falling by windmilling his arms ridiculously, both feet stuck to the sticky rug.

Ginny sniggered.

Ron, now stuck hands and knees to the rug, shot her a ferocious look.

'You!' he shouted. 'Ginny! – I'm going–'

'To what?' Ginny taunted. 'Disembowel me? Hex me? Good luck!'

Ron tried hard to pull his hand off the carpet and go for his wand. He let out an irritated huff as his hand was yanked back onto the soft, dusty pile.

Harry wasn't fighting the rug. He'd wised up before Ron had. He watched Ginny over his shoulder and went for his wand.

Ginny squeaked. She grabbed Hermione by the arm and shot for the door. Hermione jumped after her through the doorway just as she heard Harry aim a Jelly-Legs Jinx at her. Ginny was giggling madly, flat against the wall a little past the doorway. Hermione turned and flattened herself against the wall as well, retrieving her wand from her pocket.

'Finite!' they heard Harry shout back inside the room.

'Ooohhh…' Ginny snickered. 'That's not going to work!'

'Harry!' Ron shouted. 'What in –'

'Hang on!' Harry shouted back. 'Impervio!'

Hermione was impressed. It was clever thinking to cast a charm on yourself rather than try to end the enchantment on the rug. Ginny shoved herself harder against the wall, pulling a grimace and readying her wand. They heard Harry cast the charm on Ron too, and then there was silence.

Ginny and Hermione were ready, wands trained on the doorway. They heard a bit of whispering, then two loud cracks.

'Disapparated!' Hermione hissed, whirling around, eyes searching – Ginny whipping her wand this way and that beside her. The boys wouldn't be far: the only place you could Apparate to inside the house was somewhere else inside it.

Walburga's bedroom door flew open and Harry came springing up the stairs –

'Ahhh!' Ginny shrieked, launching forward and throwing a spell at Harry. Hermione jumped away from Ron's jinx.

'Cantis!' Ron shouted and Hermione threw up a shield with a hurried 'Protego!' The spell deflected and took out a snake on the cornice.

'It was all Hermione!' Ginny laughed, dodging out of the way of Harry's spell. 'I didn't do anything!'

'That's not true!' Hermione shouted, and Ginny laughed harder.

'You're supposed – ' Ginny threw a Bloating Hex at Harry, 'to be on my team, Hermione!'

Hermione blocked jinx after jinx, deflecting them into the wall, before she caught sight of a candelabra on a hall table she was sure Sirius wouldn't mind losing and sent it at Ron, its arms raising to pin him.

'Then don't pin things on me!'

'Yeah,' grunted Ron, wrestling with the candelabra, 'but you didn't warn us, did you Hermione!'

'Tarantallegra!' Ginny shouted, but Harry dodged it and the jinx took out a bit of ugly wallpaper. Harry wasn't put out for long.

'Woah – what?' Ginny shouted as a jinx, shot by Harry, finally connected with her. Hermione glanced away from Ron just long enough to see Ginny's hair growing into a fabulous afro. Hermione threw a spell at Harry and grinned as it hit its mark and Harry snorted like a pig.

Ron had just yanked the candelabra off him when Ginny, batting her massive hair out of her eyes, fired a Bat-Bogey Hex at him over Hermione's shoulder. It was beautifully deflected by a shield charm that rammed it straight back at Hermione and Ginny, and the two of them dove for cover.

'Rictusempra!' both boys cried almost as one and Hermione knew she'd been hit. She doubled over, giggling helplessly, as what felt like a hundred deft fingers tickled her sides.

'Nooo!' Ginny laughed, toppling to her knees.

'Admit,' Harry began, then snorted –

'Admit we win,' Ron said for him, 'and we'll end it!'

Hermione gave in before Ginny did, and breathed a wonderful gulp of air, able to inhale once the tickling spell had stopped. She sat where she'd slumped against the wall, breathing hard, watching Ginny try to persist. Harry was stood over the giggling and squirming girl, waiting, his wand ready.

'Fine!' Ginny gasped breathlessly. 'Fine – you w-win!'

Harry helped her up once he'd ended the charm. He only snorted two more times before Hermione took pity on him and lifted the jinx.

It was good, Hermione thought as they trooped back down to the kitchen, that the two prospective Aurors had won. They'd need the confidence.