Chapter Seven

Spreading the Word

Alaw was walking down a long, dark corridor. The walls were covered in black, marble tiles and she could see a faint reflection of herself in them as she passed. Every few feet there was a torch burning in a bracket, showing her the way. At the end of her journey she came upon a door, which was completely black, with no handle, or keyhole. She raised a hand to push it open, but it wouldn't budge. Then she tried with both hands, pushing with all her might and grunting in frustration, but the door remained closed. She leant her palms on the surface of the wood and frowned, looking around the edges of the door for grooves, or hinges, but there was nothing.

"Hello?" she called, knocking loudly. But there no answer.

If it hadn't been for the invisibility cloak, Alaw thought she would have gone completely mad with boredom in Grimmauld Place. Even with the ability to sneak out of the house, it looked like it would be a long month. Mrs Weasley was determined to keep all the young ones as busy as possible, perhaps so they wouldn't feel useless, or so they couldn't snoop on the Order. She had them scrubbing from breakfast till dinner most days, and their efforts were certainly making a difference to the old house. Most of the rooms were now as least free of mould and dark objects, though sometimes they came across things that they couldn't tackle without the help of an expert. They'd all backed hastily away when a cabinet they'd been about to move rattled ominously.

"Maybe it's a Boggart," Hermione suggested, peering into the keyhole gingerly.

"Maybe, but I think we should leave it for now," said Mrs Weasley, pulling Hermione away and frowning suspiciously at the shuddering handles. "I'll ask Mad-Eye to have a look the next time he's in."

The kitchen was still the cleanest and most used room in the house, though Alaw had high hopes of turning the drawing room into a decent place to hang out. She persuaded a moody Sirius to help her clean the sofas and rip up the threadbare carpet just a few days after the Hearing.

"It's no good to us like this," she grunted, tugging at a loose corner. "We're much better off polishing the floorboards and putting down some nice, new rugs."

Sirius seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit, eschewing his wand, and tearing the carpet up with gusto.

"I – really – hate – this – place," he said through gritted teeth as the floor groaned in protest.

"Really? Cause I couldn't tell," Alaw grinned.

It was just the two of them in the drawing room, everyone else was upstairs in one of the bathrooms, doing battle with an old ghoul which had taken up residence in the toilet. Alaw sat down on the arm of the sofa and wiped her brow, panting. The door opened and then shut again, and she looked over, but no one had entered. Then she heard a croaking voice say,

"What are they doing?! The blood-traitor and the Mudblood scum?"

She looked down in shock to see a strange little humanoid creature, peering around the edge of the sofa at Sirius, who was using a knife to pry the carpet away from the skirting board. The man – the voice had sounded male – was barely taller than Alaw's waist. He had a large, dome-like head, enormous pointy ears, and a snout of a nose. He was bent over and Alaw got an impression of great age and frailty, and he was watching Sirius with undisguised hatred.

"Hello," Alaw said politely.

The man ignored her, continuing to stare at Sirius, but he muttered under his breath,

"The Mudblood speaks, Kreacher will not look at her, Kreacher will not be tainted."

Alaw blinked in surprise and cocked her head. She suddenly made the connection between the man, who was apparently called Kreacher, and the shrunken heads on the landing. She also remembered seeing the statue of a being just like this at the Ministry of Magic, though that one had been considerably happier looking. At the time she'd thought it might be a Goblin, but she now had her doubts.

"Um, Sirius?" she called uncertainly, standing up and glancing at her godfather. Sirius looked up and scowled at the sight of the intruder.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

Kreacher bent into a comically low bow which conveyed nothing but mockery.

"Kreacher is cleaning," said Kreacher unctuously to which Sirius snorted.

"Like hell you are, I told you to stay in your disgusting little hole and out of everyone's way! If you want to pinch back all the crap my mother kept, you can do it at night when you won't bother anyone."

Alaw was startled at the harsh way Sirius addressed the little man but Kreacher seemed quite unperturbed.

"Of course Master, Kreacher lives to serve the house of Black." And then, in a low voice that was clearly audible, "Broke his mother's heart, what would my Mistress say? Her house defiled by Mudbloods and freaks, one stands so close to Kreacher now, Kreacher can smell its stink!"

"Get out you cretin!" Sirius snarled and Kreacher scampered for the door, disappearing through it and closing it behind him with a snap.

"Who the hell is that?!" Alaw demanded.

Sirius was giving the closed door a disgusted look.

"Kreacher," he growled. "My dear departed mum's mad old House Elf. He was always a bit cracked, even when I was a boy, but he's been on his own in this place ever since she died so he's gone even more round the twist. As you can tell from the state of this dump."

Sirius obviously thought he'd explained himself adequately because he went back to ripping up the carpet with renewed vigiour. Alaw remained where she was, frowning in confusion.

"What's a House Elf when it's at home?" she asked and Sirius nodded towards the door.

"That's a House Elf. You've never met one before? No, I suppose you wouldn't have. Well, House Elves are a race of magical Beings. Each one is bound to serve a magical family their entire lives. Usually it runs down family lines, Kreacher's mother served the Blacks before he did, and so on and so forth."

"Serve?" Alaw repeated, "You mean – the whole race – every single one – has to serve wizards? Why?"

"I don't know, they just do, it's what they like. It's how it's always been."

"What do you mean, it's what they like? Not every single Elf, surely, they're all servants? That doesn't make any sense. And why did Kreacher stay here when you're mum died? Why didn't he leave? Find another job?"

"Kreacher would rather top himself than leave this house," Sirius laughed bitterly. "He's bound to the Blacks. Usually, if a wizarding line dies and there are still House Elves, they'll be left to some distant relative. But sometimes the Elves just stay where they are and rot. They can be a bit dim sometimes. Especially that one."

Alaw stared at Sirius feeling deeply unsettled.

"Left, they can be left to other wizards in wills? They're slaves! You people keep slaves?!"

Sirius looked up at her horrified tone and frowned.

"Well, I suppose, you could put it like that. But there's no need to look so shocked, it's not slavery as the muggles know it. The Elves like it, like I said, it's how it's always been. It's their whole purpose in life."

But Alaw shook her head in utter disgust.

"That's vile, it's sick!" she said angrily. "No, that can't be right. We threw out slavery centuries ago! Ok, it still happens in some places, but it's not legal! What if the House Elves don't want to serve?"

"They do though, Al. Don't get yourself all upset about it, they're not like humans. They're quite content to do what they're told. If you tried freeing a House Elf they'd have a fit! They just can't cope when they don't have a master."

"Oh my god do you hear yourself?!" Alaw cried, now quite furious. "Replace the word 'Elf' with, oh I don't know, 'African', and you'll hear how terrible it sounds!"

"They're not people like us, Al, they don't think the same way," said Sirius, standing up and speaking in a soothing way. He obviously couldn't understand why she was so upset. "It's not the same kind of situation. What happened to Black slaves was terrible, obviously, but this isn't the same!"

There was obviously no point arguing with Sirius about it. Alaw threw him an angry look before stalking out of the drawing room. She feared that if she stayed she'd only end up punching something in frustration.

Hermione, of course, had agreed with Alaw when she told her about Kreacher, but the others had just laughed at them. They'd stopped fairly quickly when Hermione grew not only angry but upset, shouting at them about being selfish idiots. It had been a very quiet dinner that evening, no one wanting to set her off again. The next morning, Alaw's temper still hadn't abated so she'd thrown on the invisibility cloak and slipped out of the house just after breakfast to cool off. She caught the train to Camden and before long she was striding through the front door of the Mended Cauldron.

"Oh hello again," called Jenny cheerfully, looking up from the table she was wiping down. There were a few other patrons dotted about the place, chatting over coffee or staring at their phones or laptops. "Knew you wouldn't stay away long, no Muggle-born does."

"Yeah, I need my fill of Wi-Fi before I go back to school," Alaw agreed fervently. She approached the counter and peered at the cakes on display. "Can I have a bit of that Salted Caramel Cake?"

"Sure," said Jenny, rounding the counter and sliding open the glass panel. Alaw gazed at her curiously and then asked,

"So, when were you at Hogwarts?"

"Oh I graduated five years ago now, didn't fancy taking a desk job in the Ministry so I opened this place not long after. Business is pretty good, especially in the summer months when you lot are off school."

"And I see you were a Hufflepuff," said Alaw, nodding at the scarf pinned proudly on the wall behind Jenny.

"Yep, a Badger through and through. What about you?"

"Slytherin," said Alaw, accepting her cake with a nod of thanks. Jenny raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Really?" she asked. "And here was me thinking you were a Muggle-born. Half-blood then?"

"No I am Muggle-born."

A crease appeared in Jenny's forehead and she gave Alaw an appraising look.

"I know who you are, you're Allow aren't you?"

"A-law, yes." Alaw corrected automatically. "You've heard of me?"

"Oh yeah, all anyone could talk about a few years ago. And it was in the paper wasn't it? And on Mugglenet."

Alaw scowled and directed her attention to her purse. She wasn't likely to forget the article Rita Skeeter had written about her following her Sorting. In the article, Skeeter had called it a 'freak turn of events' and had suggested that the Sorting Hat was somehow broken, and that Dumbledore was behind the whole thing. Many of Alaw's fellow students had taken the article as permission to harass her wherever she went, jinxing her in the corridors and shouting slurs at her as she passed. The teachers had tried to crack down on the bullying, but they hadn't been entirely successful.

Things had come to ahead shortly before Christmas, when Alaw had been ambushed in the Slytherin Common Room, kicked and hexed, and then been thrown out. When she had tried to go back later she'd been chased off by Theodore and his friends who'd threatened her with the Crutiatus curse. Hence her new accommodation on the sixth floor. Jenny was nodding grimly.

"That article was disgusting," she said with feeling. "Me friends and I, we were so angry when we heard about it! We even wrote in to the Daily Prophet, and the Minister for Magic's office, but we never heard back. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that."

Alaw blinked in surprise and then a grateful smile broke on her face.

"Thanks, it did suck for a few weeks, but things got better over time. Sort of, well not really, but I learnt to deal with it."

As Jenny took her money and rummaged around in the till for her change, Alaw squinted at her thoughtfully.

"Have you – uh – have you heard any rumours going around this summer? About what happened at the end of last term?" Alaw asked cautiously. Jenny didn't answer immediately, and when she handed over the change she gave Alaw an unreadable look.

"I heard some things, yeah," she said coolly. "My brother, Ritchie, he's still at school in Gryffindor. He was telling me about what Dumbledore said at the end of term feast."

Alaw knew Ritchie Coot, vaguely, he was in the year below her and he'd always struck her as a bit annoying.

"And – what do you think?"

"And I don't know. Dumbledore says You-Know-Who's back from the dead, the Prophet says Dumbledore's crazy. I know which one sounds more believable. Then again, this is the same Prophet that has a go at Muggle-borns who get Sorted into Slytherin and basically calls us scum. So I don't know. Ritchie said you were involved in all that."

"You could say that," said Alaw darkly. She glanced around the café again. There weren't too many people in, but she couldn't tell if they were Muggles or Wizards so she dropped her voice a little. "Look, I'd really like to talk to you about this if that's ok? I've been planning to spread the word before I go back to Hogwarts."

Jenny agreed to hear her out and after calling a spotty youth from the back room to mind the till, she directed Alaw to a vacant booth.

"Alright, why don't you tell me your side of the story?" Jenny suggested.

About two hours later, Hermione entered the Mended Cauldron. She'd texted Alaw, wanting to know where she'd disappeared to, and Alaw had urged her to come and meet up with her. Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw Alaw surrounded by a group of people, all with their laptops out and typing furiously.

"Al, what's going on?" Hermione asked, squeezing in between two lads and peering at the assembled tech. Alaw looked up excitedly.

"Hermione! You made it, finally. Check it out, Jenny helped me set up this post of Mugglenet."

Alaw turned her laptop around so that Hermione could read the headline of the post. A WARNING TO ALL MUGGLE-BORNS AND HALF-BLOODS: VOLDEMORT IS BACK. Beneath it was a short, straight to the point post about Voldemort's return and the Ministry cover-up.

"We've had over a thousand hits in the last hour, that's got to be half the Muggle-borns and Half-bloods in the country!" said Alaw proudly. "And loads of people have posted, some from abroad!"

"What, they believe you?!" Hermione asked.

"Well, some have just been trolling the page, calling me a crazy bitch and all that. But there have been a few asking for more details. I just got a private message from Dean, he says he wants to know more. And Candice has reposted on her page in support, you remember her? She was on the American Quidditch team. Really nice girl."

Hermione sat down on the bench next to Alaw and clicked through the posts.

"I had no idea you were good at this social media stuff Al," she said, sounding impressed. Alaw shook her head.

"I'm not, I suck at that stuff. Jenny did most of it, and Carl. Oh right, sorry, Hermione, these are Jenny's friends. That's Carl, and Amy, and Sam. They're all obviously Muggle-borns like us. Apart from Sam, he's a Pureblood but he's been converted to the ways of the 21st Century."

Hermione nodded weakly to everyone who greeted her cheerfully before going back to their computers.

"And here was me thinking you'd stormed off because you were upset!" Hermione muttered.

"Oh I had, but I'm over that now. This is the easiest way to let Muggle-borns know that Voldemort's out there."

There was a pause as Hermione scanned the post again. Some of the comments were quite vile in the language they used to describe Alaw and Hermione shivered.

"Al, this is great, but aren't you worried that the Ministry will crack down on it? They could arrest you for spreading 'false' information."

"I know it's a possibility," Alaw agreed gravely. "But they couldn't arrest me, I haven't broken any law. There's nothing illegal about stating what I think happened. All they can do is contradict me, which will only bring more attention to the issue. And besides, I don't even know if the Ministry knows about this website."

"They'll have someone keeping an eye on it," Hermione warned. "Someone in the Law Enforcement Department I'll bet."

Alaw shrugged.

"Still not illegal. The website is set up to look like a bunch of nerds fighting about some sort of roleplaying game. No Muggle is going to guess what's really going on just by looking at Mugglenet."

The girls stayed the café for another hour, adding to the page about Voldemort and answering the flood of messages that came in. They ignored all those from people calling them crazy and blocked any that became too aggressive, but there were plenty who seemed genuinely curious or worried. Alaw had a long conversation with Penelope Clearwater who wanted to know which students to avoid when term started. Alaw told her all she knew, but avoided naming any names on the public page, because that really would be illegal without proof.

When they left the Mended Cauldron, Alaw thanked Jenny and her friends profusely for their help and they promised her that they would continue to maintain the page once she was back at Hogwarts. Alaw walked towards the train station feeling quite proud and when she caught sight of bookshop she decided to treat herself.

"Can we look in here? Just for a few minutes?" she asked.

Hermione was the last person in the world resist the lure of new books so the girls went in to browse. Alaw made a beeline for the Sci-Fi and Fantasy section and flicked through the new releases idly, until a display in the corner caught her eye. The table was dedicated to Tolkein and Alaw picked up a copy of the Hobbit fondly. It was a handsome, leather bound thing and she smiled to herself.

"I thought you already had that book?" Hermione said with a frown as Alaw paid for it.

"It's not for me, it's for a friend," Alaw said evasively.

Hermione seemed to understand who she was talking about and seemed on the verge of saying something about it, but she just closed her mouth and shook her head with a sigh. She had never understood Alaw's strange friendship with Draco, but had given up commenting on it.

The drawing room was looking a lot less depressing now that Alaw had had a chance to spruce the place up. The floorboards were newly polished and the mouldy curtains had been ripped down. They hadn't been replaced yet but at least they didn't have to put up with the smell anymore. There were a few brightly coloured cushions and throws on the sofas as well which clashed unashamedly with the gloomy wallpaper.

"Sirius mate, make a move already," Alaw sighed. Sirius, who had been frowning at the chessboard for over two minutes, held up a hand and kept his eyes on the piece.

"Now now, don't rush me," he chided.

Alaw rolled her eyes and took a long draught of her beer. She and Sirius were alone in the drawing room that evening and they were passing the time by drinking and chatting. Hermione was presumably reading one of her new books and the boys and Ginny had been in the kitchen the last time Alaw had been down for a refill.

"Sirius," Alaw whined and her godfather reached forward to move his bishop.

"Check," he said smugly and Alaw scowled, resting her chin in her hand and trying to work out how to save her King without having to sacrifice the Queen.

"You're a pain in my arse Black," she complained and Sirius smirked.

Their argument about Kreacher notwithstanding, Sirius' mood had lightened considerably ever since the young ones had come to stay in the house. He'd turned a blind eye to their many attempts to eavesdrop on Order conversations, though he wasn't outright helping them. Yet.

"I hear you'll be having a full Order meeting next week," Alaw said lightly, reaching forward to move her rook and then thinking better of it. Sirius gave her a look, as if he knew exactly what she was doing.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, we are."

"Do you think Dumbledore will actually talk to me if I try, or will he blank me again?" Alaw asked, now peering at her knight and wondering if she felt like losing him. He saw her looking and shook his head furiously at her. Sirius sighed.

"I still don't understand why he did that," he muttered.

"Maybe I've disappointed him one time too many," Alaw mused. "I haven't exactly been an ideal student, always mouthing off at him. I had a proper go at him at the end of term when he said I couldn't join the Order. Then there was the whole France incident."

"Al, I'm sure that's not the case," Sirius said firmly. "Look, when Remus and I were at school we were a right bunch of outlaws, always getting into trouble. But Dumbledore never gave up on us, or James."

Alaw gave her godfather an incredulous look but refrained from saying what was on her mind. Dumbledore had believed that Sirius was guilty of betraying the Order and had left him to rot in Azkaban for twenty years, never bothering to find if there was more to the story. That, in Alaw's opinion, was the very definition of giving up on someone. But it wasn't wise to argue with someone when one was trying to extract information.

"Maybe, I know he's just trying to protect us," Alaw said, trying to sound sincere and not sarcastic. "But he's treating us like little kids. We deserve to know something."

She let that hang and decided she was willing to kill off her knight to protect her king and queen. She prodded him into place where he quivered before Sirius' bishop. Sirius didn't order him to take the knight immediately, he was looking deeply troubled and not saying anything. After a lengthy pause, Alaw decided to give him another prompt.

"I'm scared, Sirius, I'm scared of what it's going to be like when we go back to school."

She wasn't really acting here, she was scared of what might happen. What would Theodore and Crabbe and Goyle be like now that they had a powerful master to back them up and goad them on? Before it was just jinxes and jibes, how long would it take for them to learn darker spells, and get the stomach to use them?

"I won't tell you not to worry, Al, because I think you deserve not to be mollycoddled. But I don't think anything too bad will happen as long as Dumbledore is there. And McGonagall too, she's in the Order, she knows what's going on."

Alaw made a mental note to add McGonagall's name to their list of confirmed Order members. They'd been fairly certain she was involved, but this was the first proper proof they'd had.

"But we don't even know who exactly the Death Eater's all are!" Alaw pressed, letting a little desperation leak into her voice. "We don't know where Voldemort is hiding, or what his plans are. We'll just be sat in school whilst he's out there, doing god knows what."

She was being a little obvious now but she was sure Sirius wanted to tell her the answers to these questions. He glanced quickly towards the door and pursed his lips, thinking. Then he turned back to Alaw and lowered his voice.

"Well we don't even know who all the Death Eaters are, Al, we only have some names and you could probably guess some of them. And as to where he's hiding, well, Voldemort's probably got plenty of private little holes to slither into when he wants alone time. But you can probably guess where his main base of operations is."

"The home of one of his Death Eaters," Alaw muttered slowly and Sirius nodded, seeming to want her to riddle it out for herself. "One of the old, rich family homes, with lots of protective wards."

"The home of someone who was loyal to him before…" Sirius prompted and Alaw frowned.

"Someone the Ministry won't bother…Lucius Malfoy?" Alaw guessed and Sirius gave the tiniest nod before whispering urgently,

"You didn't hear that from me! I'm only telling you this so you won't go mad thinking about it. You could have figured that out yourself anyway."

Alaw smiled gratefully and then also glanced towards the door. She was doing well, this was the most info they'd managed to extract in all the weeks they'd been trying, which said something about how close-lipped everyone had been. Did she dare go further?

"What's this object Voldemort wants?" she asked, throwing caution to the wind. "The thing he didn't have last time?"

Sirius frowned and sat back, taking and sip of his drink before shaking his head. Ah, she'd gone too far.

"Can't tell you that Al, sorry. I made a promise to Dumbledore."

Alaw huffed and sat back too, folding her arms and crossing her legs. After staring at Sirius for a moment she asked,

"Can you at least tell me where the damn thing is? Somewhere really hard to break into I hope."

Sirius scowled and played with his drink.

"It is hard to break into, almost impossible. But that it, Al! No more digging. Now let's just finish this game and hear no more about it."

Alaw decided to drop it for the time being. She'd extracted some decent information, even though her most pressing questions had gone unanswered. They finished the game, Sirius beating her soundly in only a few more moves, before returning to the kitchen to socialise with the others. But though Alaw didn't raise the issue again, she had by no means forgotten it. Everything was riding on this Order meeting next week, it would be their last chance to find anything out before they went back to school, and Alaw was determined to make the most of it.