Chapter 24: Worried

Fifth year ended quickly and we were soon once again bidding farewell to the castle and heading home for the summer holiday.

We didn't have any plans made for visiting that summer, so I was thoroughly bored. I spent the first three weeks of break occupying myself with our summer assignments; two challenging Transfigurations essays, four essays for Potions, a book report for Divinations, a paragraph essay for Care of Magical Creatures, an essay for Charms, one for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and two for Herbology, as well as a star chart for Astronomy. The work load was more than we'd ever had during the summer holidays, and I decided to get an early start to get it over with. I laughed trying to picture Sirius managing to get all of it finished on the train, like he did every year.

Sirius and Addi were back with their grandfather for the first time since the previous summer when James and I had visited. I was worried about them. Addi wrote almost everyday and assured me that both of them were fine.

By the time the first month of break was over, I had finished all of my summer assignments, brushed up on my flying skills on my old Shooting Star broomstick, helped mum care for the garden, including degnoming it about four times, and helped dad figure out the complexities of the muggle television. Needless to say summer was not only very boring, but very uneventful.

Three days had passed without word from Addi. I had begun to feel slightly worried. I sent a letter out to her with Jeremy and he returned with it, squawking loudly. Now I was almost certain something was wrong. But what could I do? If I went near their house again, that would mean facing their grandfather, who already hated me. But if I didn't do anything, then something really horrible could happen to them. The answer was obvious to me. I'd go to their house and make sure everything was okay. If their grandfather did anything to me, then so be it. My friends' safety was more important to me than my own. Without any further considerations, I threw my cloak over my shoulders, yanked open my window, grabbed my old Shooting Star, and a few seconds later, I was off, soaring across the early evening sky.

After a few minutes, I began to think clearly. I hadn't told my parents what I was doing; they'd be worried sick until they found me. I hadn't brought any money, or food. I had no idea which way to fly, and the only possession I carried with me other than my broom was my wand. I briefly considered going back, at least to get some things I needed, but I quickly decided against it. The more time I wasted, the worse off Sirius and Addi might be. I leaned forward and made the broomstick accelerate faster.

As I approached the town nearest to where I lived, I flew into a cloud to avoid being spotted. The thick gray wisps of fog blocked my view completely, and I lost of any sense of direction.

With a loud thump, I felt something feathery collide with my leg, followed by a loud squawk. I wobbled on my broomstick, but quickly regained balance and continued flying, thinking nothing of it. I felt something pointy clinging on my back from my cloak. It was a bird.

"Get off!" I shouted, moving as much as possible without losing control, to try to make it leave. There was no use. The bird, or whatever it was, intended on staying. I decided to drop below the clouds long enough to see what it was. When I could see, I was startled to find a large owl that I didn't recognize, now perched on my shoulder, holding a letter and squawking loudly.

"Is this for me?" I asked, looking at the letter. The owl squawked some more, and being careful to maintain my balance, I took its letter and opened it.

Dear Remus,

Do you think you could come and stay at my house for about a week? We can pick you up at the train station near my house tomorrow afternoon. Everyone else is coming and Sirius and Addi are already here. I really need to talk to you about something. You don't have to let me know; just come.

Your friend,

Lily

I groaned. So Sirius and Addi were at Lily's house, and they hadn't even let me know. They were perfectly fine and here I was flying halfway across Britain because I thought they were in danger! Angry as I felt at that moment, I was relieved that they were safe. I hadn't flown more than about three miles, so I turned back and returned home before the sun had set. Luckily, my parents hadn't even noticed that I was gone.

Early the next morning I set off on the train to Surrey, anticipating a nice calm week at Lily's house with my friends. But was I ever wrong.

"Remus!" Lily called, spotting me from across the crowded train station. "Over here!" she motioned. I dragged my trunk over to where she stood with her mum.

"So this is Remus?" asked Mrs. Evans. I nodded.

"Well, it's nice to meet you," she said. "You're James's friend, right?"

"Yeah," I answered. She nodded.

"Remus is the one that doesn't get in trouble constantly, mum," said Lily. Mrs. Evans nodded, laughing.

"So, where's everyone else?" I asked.

"We've got to pick Erin up here. Her train's due at four fifteen," said Lily. "Peter should arrive as soon as we get back to my house, James's dad is bringing him later, and I Sirius and Addi are back at the house. That's what I've been meaning to talk to you about." She gave me a meaningful glance. I nodded, wondering what could be that important about them.

"Hey, there's Erin!" said Lily, after a moment of silence. "Erin over here!" Lily called to her waving her arm. Erin saw us and hurried over.

"Hi mates," she called cheerfully. Lily introduced her to Mrs. Evans, and then we left.

We arrived at the Evans' house in about a half an hour. It was a typical looking muggle house; brick and two stories, with a tiny front lawn and flowers, like all the others next to it, on a quiet street in the suburbs. We entered through the front door.

"Moony!" I heard Sirius' booming voice.

"Hi, Siri—" I stopped when I realized that he had long forgotten me and had Erin in his arms. Addi peered in from another room.

"Hi Remus," she said, smiling and walking in. I pulled her into my arms.

"I was so worried about you," I said.

"What?" she asked.

"You usually write to me everyday, and then you did write for three. And when I sent a letter out with Jeremy, he came back with it," I said. "Then Lily wrote and said you were here." I decided not to mention that I was going to fly to their house to make sure everything was all right.

"Oh—I'm sorry," Addi apologized. "I guess—I –er—just forgot to tell you we were coming." Her voice quivered.

"It's okay," I said. "I'm just glad you and Sirius are all right."

"What about me?" asked Sirius.

"Remus didn't know we were coming here and he got worried," Addi answered quickly, raising her eyebrows at her brother. I began to get the feeling that something was going on that I didn't know about. Sirius nodded.

"So, how have you been, Moony?" he asked.

"All right," I replied.

"Full moon go okay without us?"

"Yeah."

"Come on," said Lily. "You can take your stuff upstairs." We followed her up to the staircase.

"This is my room," she motioned to a tiny room painted in pale blue, with a large bay window that faced the street. "Erin, you can put your things in there. Remus, follow me." She led me to a rather empty looking room, except for a single bed and an antique dresser. "This is the spare room where you, James, Sirius and Peter are staying." I nodded and placed my things on the floor in a corner.

"I need to talk to you sometime when Sirius and Addi aren't around," Lily whispered to me as we left the room.

"Okay," I agreed, feeling more suspicious than ever. We were all settling ourselves in Lily's room when the doorbell rang.

"Oh, that must be Peter," Lily sighed. "Come on." We went downstairs. Lily pulled the front door open.

"Hi Peter," she said trying to hide the look of disgust on her face as she saw Peter prodding one of the plants on her front porch with his wand and turning it brown.

"Hi," said Peter, who was accompanied by his mum, an impatient looking woman of ratty blonde hair and Peter's mouse-like nose and beady eyes.

"Now Peter, you remembered your…" his mum began.

"I've got everything!" said Peter, obviously not wanting her to bring up something as embarrassing as fuzzy sheep pajamas again.

"Okay then, owl me if anything goes wrong," said Mrs. Pettigrew. "Actually, I forgot, this is a muggle house," she said rather bitterly. "Do you remember how to use the telephone?"

"Yes mum!" Peter sounded annoyed. We watched as she hugged him, then left. Peter grumbled for a bit afterward. We led him up to the room, where he put his things. Then we went into Lily's room to talk until James showed up. We weren't there long before the doorbell rang. We all ran downstairs to see who it was. Lily's muggle sister, Petunia, had already answered the door. It was James. Petunia walked away grumbling, without saying a word of greeting to James.

"Nice to see you too, Tuna!" he called as she stomped off. James hardly got through the door before he had Lily in his arms, pulling her into a hug and kissing her.

"Eww!" Sirius joked. "Can you two breathe in there?" he asked after a moment, observing them closely.

"Sirius, mind your own business!" said Lily finally, punching him in the arm jokingly.

"Ouch!" Sirius staggered around the room, pretending to be in a great amount of pain, before collapsing on an armchair.

"Sorry, Lily. Sirius doesn't know how to mind his own business," Addi apologized, rolling her eyes at Sirius.

"Nope. I never learned that," Sirius agreed, grinning.

"So, Tuna seemed thrilled to see me, Lils, as usual," said James. Lily groaned.

"You know how she is. She's even more angry than usual because all of you are staying at once."

"I think we've just found ourselves a new target, Prongs," said Sirius.

"No!" shouted Addi and Erin in unison.

"Be my guest," said Lily shrugging. Addi and Erin stared at her, shocked. "She's mean. She hates us." Lily explained.

"Who was at the door?" asked Mrs. Evans, entering the room. "Oh, James, great to see you again. You're just in time for dinner. How have you been lately, dear?"

"Fine, thanks," James replied.

"Come along now. Dinner's ready." Mrs. Evans led us to the kitchen.

"Well, I'm sure you all have big appetites, so I made plenty," she said. "Enjoy."

"Thanks, Mrs. Evans," said Sirius. We nodded and began to eat. The food was delicious. I was just on about my fourth plate when Mr. Evans arrived home.

"So, you're Lily's famous friends?" he asked when he walked in. We nodded, grinning. He laughed. The Evans seemed interested in the wizard world. They were obviously very proud of Lily. Petunia, however, seemed to hate her sister. She was always giving her looks of great loathing whenever Mr. and Mrs. Evans weren't looking. That night at dinner, we organized the sitting arrangement so that Petunia would have to sit next to Sirius. Somehow he managed to put a dead mouse in Petunia's salad. She screamed so loudly that I thought the windows would shatter. We were all laughing hysterically, and even Mr. and Mrs. Evans were holding back laughter. Petunia burst into tears and went running from the table.

"Hey, I take that offensively!" said Peter, motioning toward the dead mouse. We laughed again.

That evening, we watched a muggle movie on the T.V. Lily, Sirius, and Addi convinced the rest of us that they were great, however James and I still didn't think so. Afterward, we decided to go to bed, or at least pretend to, until everyone except for Lily, Erin, James and I were sleeping. James and I sneaked out of the spare room and met up with Lily and Erin in the hallway. We crept silently down the stairs and into the living room. After settling ourselves in a circle in the middle of the floor, James was the first to speak.

"Is there a point to this?"

"Yes," Lily replied. "There's something I need to tell you. It's about Addi and Sirius."

"Well, what?" asked James.

"Would you quit being so impatient!" Lily hissed.

"Sorry," said James with a slight attitude.

"Anyway," Lily continued. "I didn't just invite them to visit. Sirius called and asked if they could come. And from what I understand, James, he was at your house, right?"

"Yeah," James said. "It was weird, because he said his grandfather was in town for a few days and he and Addi allowed to stay at my house. But then, two days later, their grandfather showed up and demanded that they come home. So apparently they ran away."

"That's what I think, too," said Lily. "Because just a day after that, at three a.m. I got a phone call from Sirius asking if it would be all right if he and Addi could stay here for a little while. He said they needed to get away. But I'm wondering if anything happened..."

"I wish they'd tell us," I sighed. "No wonder Addi reacted strangely when I asked her why she didn't tell me she was visiting you."

"Ever since last summer, I'm convinced something is really wrong with their grandfather," said James. "I'm sure he abuses them."

"He does not." We turned to find Sirius standing in the entryway.

"Sirius! What are you doing?" said Erin.

"No, more like what are you doing, talking about me and Addi?" Sirius demanded.

"Padfoot, we were just discussing what made you want to come to Lily's," I said calmly.

"Well, if you want to know, why don't you just ask, instead of always trying to figure things out behind my back!" Sirius snapped.

"Maybe because you'll never admit to the truth!" said James.

"What are you talking about?" Sirius demanded.

"You know what I'm talking about! Your grandfather!" James insisted.

"What about him?"

"You know exactly what! He hits you."

"Do you have any idea how damn tired I'm getting of hearing that my grandfather's abusive? If you want to know the truth about what happened, I'll tell you the truth, but you had better believe me." James shook his head in disgust, and honestly, I agreed with what he thought, but I wasn't going to let Sirius know it just now.

"Go ahead, tell us, Sirius," I said calmly.

"Okay," he agreed. "I was home for summer vacation for a few weeks, and I got tired of being at my grandfather's house. You know how boring it is there," he looked at James and I. "And I don't like asking him to leave, because he almost always says no. So, I got Addi and we flew to James' house to get away for a bit. I let a note for my grandfather explaining where we'd gone. At James', I told his parents my grandfather was in town, so they wouldn't get worried. Unfortunately, my grandfather got angry that we'd left and came and picked us up. I guess he we must have really pissed him off, because when we got back, he went straight to my room, got my trunk, and put everything inside of it into the fire and made me watch it burn." Sirius paused.

"Oh my gosh!" Erin exclaimed.

"That ignorant bastard!" shouted James.

"All your things?" Lily asked.

"Everything," said Sirius. "Except for my wand and Ernie. Anyway, that's what made me want to leave again, so I called here, because it was closest, and luckily your dad came and picked us up." Sirius continued, his tone growing more angry once again. "But my grandfather never touched us! He's not abusive, and I'm getting really tired of hearing you say that constantly because it's not true! Sure he's an inconsiderate, ignorant bastard, to say the least, but he has never, ever hurt us! The only reason I came here is because he burned my trunk, and I don't want to here any of you talking about him being abusive again, understood?" he demanded. The four of us nodded, though I was certain he was flat out lying to us.

"So, then, no one's angry, right?" said Lily.

"I guess not," said Sirius.

"No," the rest of us muttered.

"Oh, Moony?" Sirius said as we were heading back upstairs.

"Yeah?"

"Don't be hard on Addi about this. She didn't do anything. It's all my fault for dragging her into it." Not knowing what to say, I nodded and went back to bed. He was right, it was all his fault.

After that night, we didn't mention Sirius and Addi's grandfather for the rest of the visit. Soon we had forgotten completely the reason that they were at Lily's. We spent the rest of our time at Lily's terrorizing the small muggle village where she lived. Petunia was our main target for pranks, and she hated all of us. I can't believe Harry is living with her and her husband now. I can't imagine how they treat a wizard boy. I don't even want to think about that.

Despite the fact that Sirius had insisted to us that his grandfather wasn't abusive, he and Addi had several cuts and bruises, which the Evans questioned. Sirius told them that he tripped on the stairs and Addi had fallen on top of him. I exchanged glances with James, who looked equally doubtful. But using our better judgment, we remained quiet.

One day, in particular, was extremely entertaining. Lily, Erin, and Addi decided to go shopping, Mr. and Mrs. Evans were both at work, and Petunia had went somewhere with her friends, leaving the four of us alone. We were just sitting in the living room wondering what to do, when the doorbell rang.

"Should we answer it?" asked Sirius.

"I'll get it," said James. He went over to the front door and opened it.

"Hello." A large man with a huge nose and almost no hair pushed his way into the living room. He wore a suit and tie, and carried a large briefcase.

"Who are you?" James demanded, looking quite startled.

"I'm Walter Cresswell, of Fine Vacuums and Floor Care. Surely you've heard of our company?"

"Er…no," said James, giving us a confused look.

"Well, not to worry, young man," said Walter Cresswell. "I am here to show you the opportunity of a lifetime."

"What?" asked Sirius.

"How good of you to ask," continued Walter Cresswell. "A life time supply of our own special vacuum cleaners!" He said in a game show host-like voice. James frowned.

"What's a vacuum cleaner?" he asked.

"What's a vacuum cleaner!" exclaimed Walter Cresswell, looking very offended. "How can you not know what a vacuum cleaner is?" I covered my eyes as I saw James reach into his pocket for his wand. I peered through my fingers. James held the wand in plain view. What was he going to do?

"I'm sorry," I said, jumping up. "James is- er- very ill. Mad actually. Very tragic disease, called wizarditis. Awful really, it causes the patient to think he's a wizard. And what do you know, it's just time for his medication now. Come along James."

"But I'm not…" James began to object, but I placed my hand over his mouth before he could say any more.

"One of the early stages is denial," I said to the salesman, nearly bursting out laughing from the looks on Sirius and Peters' faces. I dragged him into the kitchen, leaving Sirius and Peter behind with the salesman.

"James! What were you thinking? You can't just use magic on a Muggle like that!" I shouted.

"But I didn't do anything!" James protested.

"Well, you were going to!" shouted.

"I was not!" said James, then he added in a joking tone. "Me? Use magic on a Muggle? Never!"

"James, this is serious!" I shouted, realizing a moment too late that I'd used the wrong word.

"No, Sirius is over there," said James, pointing in the direction of the living room.

"Well, let's go back out there," I said. "But no magic!"

"So, how do we know that old bloke's not dangerous?" asked James.

"He's an old Muggle man selling vacuum cleaners! What could be dangerous about him?" I asked.

"What are vacuum cleaners, anyway?" asked James.

"Er—I'm not exactly sure," I said. "They're something that Muggles use to clean with. Sirius would know." We went back into the living room to find the most unusual scene. Sirius was vacuuming the salesman, who was lying face down on the floor looking helpless.

"He wanted to test it out," said Peter, shaking his head in disgust.

"So that's what you use a vacuum for!" exclaimed James. "I want to try!" The man on the floor gave a moan.

"Enough testing!" he shouted, attempting to stand up.

"Sirius," I hissed to Sirius, who was still attempting to vacuum the man's very bald head. Sirius frowned and stopped, and the Walter Cresswell got to his feet.

"I don't know what the hell you think you were doing, kid!" he growled at Sirius.

"Sir, I don't mean to be rude, but you'll never sell any of these wonderful vacuum cleaners with that attitude," said James, flashing his most innocent smile. Walter Cresswell continued growling and mumbling things that couldn't be heard clearly.

"You know, James," said Sirius, grinning. "I don't think he looks too happy, how about you?"

"I don't think so either," said James, his eyes glittering with mischief. He had his wand behind his back, and before I could stop him, he performed a Cheering Charm on Walter Cresswell. His angry expression suddenly faded and soon he was grinning and laughing hysterically. James and Sirius took advantage this and started to do some very odd things to Walter Cresswell. Soon, he had multi-colored hair, was wearing a clown suit, and had grown a three foot long blue beard. He was still laughing hysterically at all of this when we heard the front door creak, indicating someone was home. Through the door walked Lily, followed by Addi and Erin, all three of them wearing the same expression, somewhere between shock, anger, and hysterical laughter. Lily did her usual yelling.

"James Potter! What on earth are you doing?" Lily attempted to look angry, but a small smile appeared at the corner of her lips. James did his best innocent look.

"It was all him," he said, pointing to Sirius.

"Liar!" said Sirius jokingly, pointing his wand threateningly towards James.

"I'm innocent, I tell you, innocent!" James shouted, running from the room, Sirius at his heels. Meanwhile, the Cheering Charm was starting to wear off Walter Cresswell. His laughter had worn off and now he was just smiling. It wouldn't be long until it would wear off completely and then he would have been furious. By that time, I wanted him as far away as possible.

"I'm terribly sorry Mr. Cresswell, sir," I said. "But we're not interested in any vacuum cleaners today." He smiled and nodded.

"Now why don't you go get in your nice little van and drive away," Lily spoke in a tone that would be suitable for talking to a three year old.

"Okalee dokalee, bye bye!" called Walter Cresswell, gathering the vacuum and leaving. I slammed the door shut behind him and sighed.

"What was that all about?" asked Addi, still looking confused. She didn't know about cheering charms. Lily and Erin had figured it out already, and were currently chasing after James and Sirius. I told Addi the whole story.

After several weeks of causing terror to several cats, small children, elderly people, and the occasional door to door salesman, we left the Evans. The rest of the summer went by slowly. The daily letter from Addi was nice, and I even got a muggle telephone that year so we could call each other. We didn't do that much, though. I think Addi was afraid of her grandfather finding out and getting angry.