Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, I'm just playing with him (Ok, my bad that sounds naughty.)
Chapter Five
Heather awoke the next morning to sunlight streaming into her eyes. She was laying on the floor of the drawing room in her sleeping bag next to Ron and, on the sofa, Hermione. Ron had insisted that she get the sofa in a fit of chivalry that somehow didn't apply to Heather. Well, that was ok. She used to be a bloke and understood how it was. Besides, Hermione would probably always get special treatment from Ron now that they were together. Heather shook her head as a memory of Ron and Lavender from last year flitted through her mind and she silently hoped she wouldn't have to see her two friends like that any time soon, if ever.
She lay there for a while as the events of yesterday washed over her. Had it really only been a day since she had been standing in Ginny's bedroom looking at her reflection and seeing that beautiful dress for the first time. It was probably in a dump by now, she thought forlornly, remembering how it had felt while dancing at the wedding. Going pink at the memory of dancing with Charlie, which she was very happy no one was awake to see, she quickly shifted gears to consider everything that Muriel had said about Dumbledore. Was it really possible that he turned a blind eye to the neglect of his sister?
Unwilling to lie there with these thoughts racing through her mind, and as neither Hermione or Ron seemed to be waking up anytime soon, Heather crawled out of her sleeping bag, pulled on a jumper, and left the drawing room. Out on the dingy landing, she lit the tip of her wand and looked around. To her left was a bathroom and the bedroom that the Hermione and Ginny had shared the last time she had been in this house, and along the opposite wall were the mounted heads of dead house elves. Last night they had all seen that the bedroom had been rummaged through just as the drawing room had been, making them wonder who had been in here since the Order abandoned the house and what they had been looking for.
Heather started to climb the stairs, looking into the various bedrooms on the landings she pased, which had all been ransacked as well. On the top landing, Heather found it hard to look at the door to her dead godfather's bedroom. Bracing herself, she passed the door to the room Sirius had given her and turned the handle to his. Inside, she had to grin. Covering the silver and grey wallpaper that Sirius' parents seemed to have decorated the entire house with were Gryffindor banners and flags, pictures of motorbikes, and even bikini clad muggle girls, staring vapidly out at Heather from their faded pictures. She certainly had to admire her godfather's daring. Over a large desk was a small picture of four boys in Hogwarts robes. Sirius, James, Remus, and Wormtail, Heather couldn't bring herself to use any other name for that contemptible man, all waving out at her. They looked younger than they had in the memory of Snape's she had seen, putting this picture somewhere in their third or fourth year.
Reaching out, she attempted to remove the photo, it was hers after all. Unfortunately Sirius had placed a permanent sticking charm on the back, in order to prevent his parents from redecorating when he was at school or after he had run away. Instead, Heather picked up the various pieces of paper that the unknown searcher had scattered in an attempt to tidy the room. Several of them were from old textbooks, but one was a hand written letter. Curious, she sat down to read it, stopping cold when she realized who it was from. Her mother had written this shortly before they had been attacked, describing her first birthday and Sirius' gift of a toy broomstick. Swept up in emotions, Heather reread the letter three times, before looking for the rest of it. Treating the room much whoever had been in here last had, she ripped open books, reached on top of the wardrobe, and under the desk. The only thing she found was a torn picture that showed her as a baby zooming along on what mast be the same toy broom.
"Heather!" cried a voice from downstairs, sounding slightly frantic
"I'm up here!" Heather yelled back.
Thundering steps announced the arrival of Hermione, who was very pink in the face. She and Ron had panicked to wake up and find Heather gone.
"Ron, I've found her!" she shouted down the staircase behind her.
Wordlessly, Heather handed her the picture and letter. Hermione's eyes softened as she read Lily's words. "Oh Heather" she said, then looked around the room. "This room's been searched just like the rest of them have."
"Some of that was me, but yeah, there's definitely been someone in this house since the Order left."
"I wonder who it could be. Well, why don't we go downstairs and see what we can do for breakfast?" Hermione suggested.
Following her back out onto the landing, Heather looked at the door to what had been her bedroom. It was closed, just as Sirius' had been, but she was curious to know if anyone had been inside. Opening the door, her wand light fell on a piece of paper that had been affixed to the door. It had been there since before the room was given to her, but she had never taken the time to read it.
Do Not Enter
Without the Express Permission
of Regulus Arcturus Black
"RAB!" she shouted, pointing at the paper. Hermione gasped and called for Ron, who came pounding up the stairs.
"What? If it's any more giant spiders I want to eat before-" he lapsed into silence as Heather pointed to the paper.
"Isn't that your old room?" he asked Heather
"Yes, but I'd never even thought to look at this before." She replied, kicking herself mentally. How much time might she have saved by paying more attention to her surroundings?
She turned the knob and opened the door, leading the way inside. As she had expected whoever had searched the house hadn't spared her bedroom from their rummaging. The wardrobe stood wide open, the dresser drawers were all pulled out, and the sheets on the bed had been thrown aside carelessly. Clothes she had forgotten that she had left there were strewn about the floor, and Ron's ears went pink once more at the sight of some old knickers and bras laying in the jumble.
With a wave of her wand Heather sent her old clothes flying back to their drawers, and then set to righting the room. She had gone through most of what Regulus had left behind when she had moved in years before, and so knew the locket couldn't be hidden in here, but that didn't stop the three of them from searching any nook and cranny they could think of. Ron pointedly let Heather and Hermione go through the wardrobe and dresser, which Heather appreciated. Though she couldn't fit any of those old clothes anymore, the thought of Ron going through them made her decidedly uncomfortable.
That begged the question yet again of who exactly had already gone through her things. Was it Snape? Perhaps in the summer before her sixth year after the Order had evacuated? If so he most likely knew who Sirius had given the room to before his death. Did that mean he knew that Heather might be a girl now, or might be disguising herself as one?
After an hour of searching, they decided that there was nowhere else in the room that the locket could be hidden. Returning to the landing, Heather locked the door with her wand and led the way back down towards the drawing room. Hermione speculated aloud that if Regulus had brought the locket back, it could still be secreted away somewhere they hadn't realized during their cleaning of the house. Pausing with her foot in midair, she gasped. There had been a locket that none of them could open, that had been thrown out of those large glass fronted cabinets in the drawing room.
They raced down the stairs and into the cold kitchen, crossing quickly to Kreacher's bedroom. Heather flung the door open to reveal the blanket within that the house elf once slept on. Unlike the last time she had seen it however, it did not glitter with the stolen trinkets Kreacher had saved from their purge of the house. Heather grabbed the smelly blanket and shook it, disgorging a long dead rat. Hermione looked crestfallen.
"Hang on," Heather said, then in a louder voice called "Kreacher!"
With a loud Crack the elf appeared, still wearing the same filthy rag he had worn the last time she had seen her elf.
"Master?" Kreacher croaked, bowing then looking up in absolute confusion.
"Yes, it's me Kreacher."
"But-" the elf started but Heather cut her off.
"Skip it. I want you to answer the question I am about to ask you truthfully, do you understand?"
The elf nodded, still clearly not understanding why his master looked like a girl.
"Kreacher, two years ago, during our cleaning of the house, there was a locket in those large glass cabinets in the drawing room. We threw it out. Did you steal it back?"
Looking resentful, he nodded.
"Where is it?" exclaimed Ron excitedly.
"Its-It's gone! Master Regulus' Locket is gone!" cried Kreacher, falling onto the floor and beginning to sob. It took a great deal of effort and patience to coax the old elf into returning to a sitting position and telling his story. Hermione gasped loudly when Kreacher told them how Regulus had been dragged under the water. Heather sincerely hoped she hadn't seen what remained of his corpse a few months ago.
"But what happened to it then?" asked Heather when the elf stopped talking.
Kreacher had brought the locket home as he had been ordered too, but no matter what he attempted he couldn't destroy it. Years had gone by and he had tried everything he could think of. When Sirius had thrown the locket out, Kreacher had retrieved it from the bag and hidden it, still intent on completing Regulus' last command. After the Order had left, Mundungus Fletcher came, Kreacher told them, and he took everything that Kreacher had kept safe.
"Kreacher," said Heather her voice full of cold fury, "I want you to find Mundungus Fletcher and bring him here. I also want you to have this, it belonged to Regulus." She added, handing Kreacher the fake locket.
They all went to bed that night feeling to excited and apprehensive to sleep. If Mundungus still had the locket their job might just be easier than any of them had ever dreamed. Again they bedded down in the drawing room, pulling the mattresses off the beds in the room next door so Heather and Ron could be more comfortable and pushing several pieces of uncomfortable looking furniture out of the way to make room.
Sure that if Kreacher could escape a lake full of inferi, he would be able to track down a lowlife thief like Mundungus in a matter of hours, Heather barely left the kitchen that day or the next. By the evening of the next night her nerves had reached a fever point. They weren't helped by Hermione's attempt at cooking. There wasn't much that was still edible in the pantry, but she had done her best with what she had. Back upstairs in the drawing room, Heather was just about to suggest a trip to a muggle grocery store when Ron, who was looking out of the window, spied two cloaked figures standing in the square across the road.
"Think they're Death Eater's?" asked Ron
"No doubt" answered Heather. It seemed however that Moody's curses had worked, for if Snape had been here, he hadn't been able to tell anyone else the location of the house. All the next two days and nights there were figures standing there, ignoring the stares of passing muggles, eyes fixed on a door they couldn't, Heather hoped, see. Heather rather thought they looked like a group of mourners standing some round the clock vigil, dressed all in black as they were.
To fill the empty time, Hermione had begun translating the copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard that Dumbledore had left her while Ron played with his deluminator. Inaction hadn't been kind to his nerves either, and it didn't take long for him to get on Hermione's nerves messing with it. After his tenth time plunging the room into total darkness, Hermione loudly shouted at Ron that if he did not stop messing with the lights, she was going to find a new permanent home for the deluminator, one that he would not like. Wanting to get away from their spat, Heather got up and made her way towards the kitchen. Even though she was sure Kreacher would appear wherever in the house she happened to be when he returned, she kept returning to the kitchen just to be safe.
As she turned the corner on the ground floor, her ears pricked up and ice flooded her spine. The locks on the front door were clicking. Someone was trying to come inside. Whipping out her wand, she extinguished the gas lamps and retreated into the gloom at the end of the long hallway, aiming very carefully for the door.
"Severus Snape?" called the ghostly voice of Mad-Eye Moody as the figure stepped inside.
With an explosion, the dusty figure of Albus Dumbledore exploded as the person gave the correct response.
"Don't move!" cried Heather, stepping out into view, her wand fixed on the man. Mrs. Black woke up at her shout, adding her cries to the din. Ron and Hermione pounded down the stairs, aiming their wands in turn at the distant figure as they reached the ground floor.
"Wait!" it cried, pulling down its hood. "It's me, Remus."
When Heather did not lower her wand, he started rattling off facts about himself that there was no way, that they knew of, the Death Eater's would be able to know. Lowering her wand, Heather considered the last piece of evidence he had given. "I taught you how to conjure a patronus, which takes the form of a stag." That had been true once, but once she had become Heather it had changed to a doe, like her mother's.
With a wave, Hermione relit the lamps, casting light onto the face of their former Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher. He looked taken aback at Heather's appearance, but followed them down to the kitchen without comment. Inwardly Heather felt nervous, unsure what Lupin was thinking of her. In hurried tones they related to each other their goings-on of the past few days. At the news that the Death Eater's had been able to track them into muggle London, Lupin sprayed butterbeer down his robes.
"There's no way you still have the trace on you, it breaks at seventeen. Besides, if the Death Eater's knew for sure you were here, there'd be a lot more of them outside. That's very worrying however that they were still able to track you."
The conversation shifted to what had happened after the wedding. The Death Eaters had questioned everyone, going so far as to cast the Cruciatus Curse on several people. With the weight and power of the Ministry behind them, they had unlimited power to do as they pleased and no one could stop them. When Hermione asked what justification they were giving, Lupin pulled a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet from his cloak pocket and set it on the table, shooting a regretful look at Heather. A picture of her took up most of the cover, headed by the words
WANTED FOR QUESTIONING ABOUT THE DEATH OF ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
Rage flooded her at the idea of having anything to do with death of her old headmaster, or that anyone could believe it. The only relief she saw in the paper was that the picture being used had been taken as she had left the ministry two years ago, the night Sirius had died. Even before transforming into her current appearance, her features had already shifted enough to make identifying her from that picture difficult. Let the Ministry hunt for a boy, she told herself with an internal sigh of relief.
As though he had read her thoughts, Lupin commented "I must say, Harry, I'm surprised to see you are still taking on the form of a girl. I would have thought that after the wedding, especially considering the relative safety of this house, that you might have returned to your usual appearance."
Heather gulped. As much as she wanted to tell Lupin the truth, Dumbledore's last bit of advice still held firm in her mind. "Oh, this, right. Well, we had discussed a long time ago that this would be the best way for my to remain incognito." She said, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.
"I see. You do know Harry, that there are rumors circulating through the Order about-"
Hermione cut across him, "What did you mean about changes in Ministry policy?" Lupin turned in his seat to look at her, then back at Heather. For a moment it seemed as though he didn't want to drop the subject of Heather's disguise, but relented.
The ministry had declared that the only way that muggleborns could have gotten their abilities was by stealing them from a witch or wizard. In order to get to the bottom of this, a Muggleborn Registration Commission had been set up, so that those under suspicion could be brought in for questioning. Hermione's face went pale at the news. Along with this, attendance at Hogwarts was now mandatory for all those of schooling age. This way the Death Eater's would be able to mold the next generation, as well as giving them an ample supply of hostages should parents act out against the new regime.
Finally, it seemed, Lupin arrived at the subject he had come to discuss.
"I know you most likely can't confirm this or not, but we, the Order, believe that you have been given an assignment from Dumbledore."
Heather nodded but did not speak.
"I don't presume you can tell me about it?"
"No, I'm sorry Remus." She wished she could give a different answer. Lupin was the last link she had with her parents and Sirius.
He looked put out at her response but shouldered on. He offered to accompany them on their travels, providing them with his years of experience and knowledge. They wouldn't need to tell him anything about what they were doing, just accept his help. This didn't sit well with Heather. Not only would they not be able to talk freely about the horcruxes around Lupin, but she also wondered why he seemed so willing to go running off into danger with them, leaving his new wife at home.
Hermione seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "What about Tonks?" she asked
Lupin grimaced. "She'll be fine. She's at her parent's house. She's…pregnant."
Hermione shrieked with excitement and Ron rose to clap Lupin on the shoulder, but Heather just sat there staring at the older man.
"So, will three become four?" Lupin asked, looking almost hopefully at Heather. "I can't help but think your father would have wanted me to come with you."
"You think so? You think my dad would have wanted you to abandon your wife and son so you could protect his dau-" she cut off suddenly, trying to cover her slip she continued on, "I think he'd be pretty ashamed of you actually."
Remus sprang to his feet and shouted at Heather, "You don't understand! What if this child is like me! I have cursed him before he is even born! Imagine them having to grow up being ashamed of who their father is."
"Well, it'd be pretty easy to be ashamed of my dad if he'd decided to dump my mum and run off actually. Sounds pretty cowardly to me." Heather answered coolly, heat rising in her face.
In a rage, Lupin swept from the kitchen without another word. Wordlessly the three of them watched him go and a moment later the door slammed shut in the hallway above. Hermione and Ron turned on Heather, saying that she shouldn't have said that. Heather didn't care. Parents, she thought to herself, shouldn't abandon their kids. When she had cooled down, she realized that she had almost announced that she was her parent's daughter without even intending to say the words. Somehow this fact reinforced her belief that what she had said to Lupin was right, even thought she couldn't explain how.