"Greenie!" Harry called the moment he'd closed the door of the dirty bedroom.
The house-elf popped into the room and grabbed Harry's hand before popping back out. They appeared in Andromeda's surgery in her home, where the witch labored over a heaving Sirius Black. It appeared the wizard was spewing everything he'd ever drunk and eaten in his entire life. Harry moved to help hold his godfather while Greenie began banishing the sick into nothingness.
"Who did this to Sirius?" the healer asked.
"The Order of the Phoenix is living at XXXXXXXXXX and Howler Weasel brewed the befuddlement potions."
"Well, they're not brewed properly and poisoned him. That's why I had to force him to be sick," Andromeda replied. "And I couldn't hear where you said they were."
Shaking his head while holding Sirius's chest, "Dumblesquat put some charm on the place to hide it from everyone."
Snorting, Andromeda explained, "The Fidelius Charm is supposed to be fool-proof but there always proves to be a traitor who gives the secret away."
"I've always thought," she began to say but stopped to help Sirius clear his mouth before the wizard lay back, gasping for breath.
Continuing her thought, Andromeda said, "I've always thought there must be something in the charm that compels one person to betray the secret or there's a curse to cause the betrayal."
Harry had several questions about that idea but kept quiet allowing Andromeda to tend to Sirius. After another ten minutes, Sirius was sitting up, hugging his godson.
"I'm sorry, Harry. There was so much going on, and someone kept providing Fire whiskey…before I knew what to think, Dumbledore started moving people into the house. First, it was Remus and then Dora. Then Moody started showing up for every meal and I enjoyed the company and the drinking. When I woke up one morning, the whole of the Order of the Phoenix was at the breakfast table and Dumbledore hid the house under the Fidelius Charm. Then Howler acted like she was in charge, ordering everyone around, and giving me vile-tasting potions. This morning, I knew I was supposed to go get you, but the whiskey and the potions made me sleepy."
"The potions weren't brewed properly. They were poisonous and you'd have been bed-ridden for months if I didn't get them out of you," Andromeda replied. "And we're still going to use a purging potion to get rid of everything."
"Oh, Merlin-love-a-duck, I hate purging potions," Sirius said. The wizard looked at Harry and said, "I ain't gonna be any fun for the next couple hours."
"Eight hours," Andromeda said. "After the purge, you're going to have some broth and then a dreamless sleep potion…better make it twelve hours, Harry."
"We'll get to France in a few days," Sirius promised before Greenie popped the teenager back to Grimmauld Place.
SCENE CHANGE %%%Greenie conjured a noxious air to follow Harry out of the room and down the stairs before she popped away to return to Andromeda's house. Opening the door to the bedroom where Sirius slept, Harry found Ron and Ginny Weasley standing there. He turned and as though his godfather was in the room, called out, "Get better Sirius."
Then he pushed through his former friends as the smell from the sick room poured out and forced both teenagers to step back. Pulling the door shut, Harry turned to the Weasels and said, "Get away from me!"
"Oh, come on mate," Ron whined. "Don't be like that. We were friends for three years before you went mental last summer."
"Yeah, Harry. I've always been your biggest fan," Ginny said wistfully.
Harry walked away from the pair without another word. Since neither of them had a wand there was nothing they could do magically against the other teenager. Ron considered tackling Harry and beating on the mud-blood. But then he imagined flying down the stairs and crashing into that heavy table in the middle of the foyer, so he followed silently. Determined to be noticed, Ginny tried to walk beside Harry and grab his hand. Sparks flew each time the girl reached for the boy's hand, and she cradled her burnt fingers in her other hand by the time they reached the top of the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, Harry turned toward the kitchen and entered the room where the voices of the adults rose as they wanted to be heard first. Only Remus asked, "How is Sirius?"
When they approached Harry, most of the adults dropped back because of the smell that still surrounded him. But everyone fussed that Harry had stolen their wands, been disrespectful, and shouldn't talk back to adults. Dumbledore stood up front and said, "Mr. Potter, I want my wand back this instant."
Pursing his lips, Harry said, "Sirius was poisoned by some badly-brewed befuddlement potions. He's purging now to get rid of the potions so stay away from his room."
Molly frowned but said nothing. She'd worried that the dried huckleberries were moldy but used them anyway, and her headache distracted her brewing.
"I'm certain, Sirius will be fine in a day or two," Dumbledore said. "But we need our wands now."
Shaking his head, and staring at Molly Weasley, Harry asked, "So you don't care that someone tried to poison my godfather…in his own home?"
The headmaster looked uncomfortable but managed to reply, "An unfortunate misunderstanding is what happened. Just a misunderstanding."
"Then, let's be clear so there are no further misunderstandings in No.12 Grimmauld Place, shall we?" Harry asked. "The Black vaults are closed and there's no money for food. Sirius is befuddled and can't sign any letters promising to repay Dumbledore or Hogwarts for the food delivered here. There are no house-elves here who will shop for you and bring you food charged to any accounts. The Order of the Phoenix may use this ground floor and the first floor. Everything above that is closed. And the library is also sealed off. The wards will defend those areas with lethal force."
"Harry, my boy, that's hardly necessary."
Grinning, Harry replied, "But Albus, old man, that's the setting in the wards until there is a new Lord Black who can change them. Maybe I should ask Draco Malfoy to go to Gringotts and see if he's the new Lord Black. He'd open the vaults again for businesses, but Draco would probably fry the members of the Order of the Phoenix hiding in one of his properties."
Looking at the various witches and wizards, Harry added, "Then you'd be the Order of Roasted Turkeys!"
No one laughed at the notion of Draco Malfoy becoming Lord Black. Dumbledore said, "That's not going to happen Harry. While Sirius lives, he's Lord Black even if he hasn't taken the ring."
"Then why did you let 'someone' poison him?" Harry asked as he glanced at Molly again. "If he dies, you can't undo that unless you're as dark as You-Know-Who."
"That was a mistake," Dumbledore admitted. "But now, we really need our wands."
"Very well," Harry said before turning turned his head to one side and asking, "Magic of the Black Family, will you return the wands of these interlopers? They understand that the next time they lift their wands against me or any other member of the Black family in this house, the wand will burn away."
Invisible and playing his role perfectly, Dobby made the wands appear on the floor in front of the appropriate wizard or witch. Everyone bent over and Dobby set off a loud whoopie cushion.
Returning to the curse Harry warned them about, Dumbledore said, "Harry, you can't let the Black family magic do that!"
Grimacing, Harry fussed, "I didn't do anything. Family magic holds this house and any visitor – like you – must abide by the rules of hospitality."
Looking at Molly he added, "I doubt any cauldron will brew properly in the kitchen or any other room in the house for the rest of the summer."
Now concerned, Molly frowned and glance toward the headmaster who also frowned. Dumbledore added, "We need to be able to brew potions somewhere safe."
"Then you shouldn't have let someone poison the member of the family living here."
Remus Lupin, who remained at the back of the room because of his sensitive nose, said, "We can talk about that tomorrow. Molly's prepared a wonderful supper."
"Yeah, Harry, get someone to remove that stink so we can eat supper," Ron said.
Harry frowned. "I'm going back to Sirius. If you don't like the stink from his sick Ron, then don't let your mum poison him again."
Angry to hear his mother insulted again, the Weasel boy lifted his wand to cast a hex at the boy-who-lived but then screamed as his wand caught fire, burned away, and blistered his fingers. Molly, who'd just finished healing Ginny's fingers, hurried to Ron.
She muttered aloud, "Someone needs to teach that boy a lesson or two about how to treat his betters!"
Harry left the kitchen. Dumbledore sighed and turned toward the floo. When Arthur asked the headmaster if he didn't want supper, the wizard replied, "I have too much work to do."
None of the other members of the Order of the Phoenix remained for supper either. The smell of the sickroom remained in the kitchen and put off everyone's appetite. Even Ron wasn't able to eat his fill but that was because he couldn't use his right hand to shovel food into his mouth, and no one would feed him.
CHANGE SCENEReturning to the sick room, Harry thought about one last, distasteful task to perform before he left Grimmauld Place to be with his godfather. He took a deep breath and called, "Kreacher, appear before me."
"Filthy mudblood dog son calls for Kreacher, again," muttered the elf after he popped into the dark room where Sirius slept.
"You betrayed your family."
The house-elf looked at Harry and declared, "And Kreacher does it again and again until disappointment son dies. That makes Lady Black's portrait happy!"
The elf voice grew fanatical in his declaration, "Kreacher never stops!"
Staring at the elf for a long moment, Harry reached down and pulled off his shoes and then his socks. The socks in his hands, he threw them at the elf and said, "You're a bad elf. I give you clothes."
"No! No!" screamed the elf who stared at the socks as they moved through the air and landed on his head. "Kreacher dies!"
As soon Harry said the words and the clothing touched the elf's head, Kreacher's magic vanished, and he collapsed on the floor before his body turned to dust. Dobby appeared, snapped his fingers to banish the dust, and then hugged the legs of Mr. Harry Potter.
His voice thick with emotion, Harry apologized, "Dobby, I'm sorry. I gave Kreacher a chance and he betrayed Sirius again. And he threatened to keep trying to kill Sirius."
"Youse tried but Kreacher nots want to change," the house-elf replied sadly. "But youse must not be blind like White Beard Goat Lover and give forever chances when bad elf or wizard don't really want to be better."
They popped away from Grimmauld Place and returned to the Tonks home. The next morning, no one could find Harry Potter and when Arthur went to the door of the room where Sirius slept, no one answered even after ten minutes of knocking. The door was locked, and the doorknob delivered a stinging shock to anyone who tried to grab it.
The curtains on Mrs. Black's portrait flew open and remained that way for the next two weeks, the lady's portrait screaming at every person moving up and down the stairs.
CHANGE SCENERY $$$After three days of rest in a posh muggle hotel near Andromeda's home, Sirius was deemed fit for travel muggle style. Using a rented car, Ted Tonks drove 'Elliot White' and his nephew, 'Nicholas White', to a train station in London where they boarded a train that carried them to Paris using the chunnel underneath the English Channel. Open for more than a year, the connection to the continent proved useful to muggles and intelligent magical persons.
Elliot and Nick wandered around Paris for six days, often sitting on benches to allow the older man to rest. They celebrated the nephew's birthday for the last two days of the month and then took another train to Lyon for a day. They traveled to the Riviera the next day where they enjoyed the beaches for ten days. The entire trip, neither wizard used magic, but a house-elf provided meals, clean clothes, and appropriate potions. Harry was the gatekeeper for schedules, money, and hotel reservations. Sirius loved the convenience of mobile phones for twice weekly calls to Andromeda, calling restaurants for dinner reservations, and summoning taxis to carry them to the cinema, shopping, and museums.
Grimmauld Place grew ever more grim with the lack of food and drink. Moody stopped visiting and contributing funds to the grocery kitty. Professor McGonagall swore at Dumbledore before she used the floo to return to Hogwarts and begin her summer vacation away from Weasels, Dumbledore, and everyone associated with the Order of the Phoenix. Arthur strained under new compulsion charms from Dumbledore and his wife – he wanted to go back to the Burrow and eat full meals prepared by his wife for him and his family – not the spare meals served to this collection of Dumbledore sycophants.
CHANGE SCENE *&*&On 24 August 1995, Sirius Black and Harry Potter returned to London via the muggle trains. At the train station, they used the tube and buses to get to the town where the Tonks house stood. They took a cab the last dozen blocks and reached the house at 8:00 PM. The healer welcomed the pair of adventurers back to her home and over a late tea, updated them on the latest news in Magical Britain.
During their absence, the Dark Lord and a few Death Eaters had been seen in Hogsmeade, around London, and then once in Diagon Alley. A raid on Azkaban had been a disaster for the Dark Lord because he lost three followers and freed no one. The ministry sent the surviving Death Eater prisoners through the veil in the Department of Mysteries to prevent any future attempts at a prison break.
Harry re-read the Daily Prophet and Quibbler from early in the spring when the resurrection occurred. The official press conference where Minister Fudge admitted that the Dark Lord had returned included statements by the Unspeakables and Director Bones that the homunculus form was undoubtedly very weak. The resurrection ritual occurred in the cemetery where the Dark Lord's muggle father was buried and had been compromised several times.
Item: Tom Marvolo Riddle, Jr. murdered his father, and this made the familial connection of the bones less potent to revive the son.
Item: The father had been a muggle and thus gave no magic to his son's resurrection.
Item: The 'willing servant' had been Dolores Umbridge – a witch with an evil personality and similar beliefs to a Death Eater but barely any magical power. When the officiant cut the witch's arm off, he failed to staunch the bleeding and Umbridge died from exsanguination.
The official report continued with the resurrected Dark Lord crawling out of the cauldron on a pair of squat legs. Malfoy was thrown about by the Dark Lord's spells as soon as Lord Voldemort received his wand. Aurors began arriving in force at the scene because of the amount of magic being displayed in a muggle area and they came out of apparition with wands firing. The dark lord apparated away, no doubt to seek aid from other Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy vanished and had not been seen since.
In the latest news, the Unspeakables announced that the officiant, Lucius Malfoy, made another critical mistake with the enemy who provided the blood – Alastor Moody's blood was polluted with many medicinal potions – the retired Auror didn't have a liver or kidney, and only the use of these potions kept the man alive. And worse, the blood collected from the Auror was also contaminated by the blood from Dolores Umbridge – Malfoy used the same knife to collect both contributions for the ritual.
"The willing servant also contributed the blood of the enemy. The magic holding Dark Lord Tom Riddle together is no doubt confused and weakening as we speak," the Unspeakable was quoted as saying.
SCENERY CHANGEHarry and Sirius returned to Grimmauld Place to find the unhappy residents bickering over a small lunch. The portrait of Lady Black began her latest attempt to yell louder and longer than Molly Weasley. The members of the Order of the Phoenix were all present, waiting for Dumbledore to appear for a meeting. Harry observed that Ron Weasley appeared to have lost weight in the last three weeks and every Weasel was short-tempered because of a lack of food. Molly wailed about her children starving to death before Sirius asked, "Doesn't Arthur still have his job? Why isn't he bringing home food?"
"It's not safe to go out shopping!"
"Yes, it is," Harry replied as he pulled a shrunken bag from his pocket and Sirius used his wand to enlarge it again. The grocery store bag was filled with cheeses, several types of bread, jam, and butter.
"Give me that!" demanded Molly making a grab for the bag. But the entire bag vanished, and the witch broke down in tears. "My children will starve to death!"
"Molly, go shopping. The grocers in Diagon Alley are open," Sirius told the woman. "I imagine the grocer in Otter Saint Catchpole misses your business."
"Potter! Give us that food!" demanded Ron, pointing his sister's wand at the boy-who-lived.
Ginny snatched her wand back and began a fist fight with Ron. Molly ignored them to fuss with Arthur about grocery shopping. Tea was served by an invisible house-elf – only tea without any biscuits or fruit. Finally, Albus Dumbledore arrived and pulled a large plastic bag from his pocket that he placed on the table. The bag was full of muggle biscuits and without waiting, Ron ripped the bag open and stuffed two biscuits into his mouth.
Then the items Harry had purchased appeared on the table spread out for the tea. The Weasels rushed to the table and no one else got any of the bread, cheese, or jams.
End Scene